


Ties

by Ajaxthegreat



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Big Dumb Metaphors, Darth Tantrum and his Evil Space Ginger, Deserts, Drinking, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Fighting is Foreplay my Friends, Force-Sensitive Hux, Hux is Not Nice, Kylo Ren just wants to be stepped on, M/M, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Phasma is a treasure, Really Questionable Pseudoscience, Sad Space Gays, Skywalkers Hate Sand, i mean it could probably be more explicit?, sexy mud, there was no sexy mud tag before but NOW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-27 01:25:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8382541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ajaxthegreat/pseuds/Ajaxthegreat
Summary: Backpfeifengesicht: (n.) German. Literally, a face in need of a fist.A story in which the Force endeavors to smash two very unhappy people into each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I adore Star Wars but there are about 8 billion things in Canon and Legends that I'm sure I don't know, and a lot of things I've made up. If something super bothers you or if it's totally wrong let me know.  
> If you hate it let me know, if you like it let me know (Kudo/Comments are so good). I crave your approval. Accept me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> update from when this was posted: i now have a tumblr. it's here! https://francisthegreat.tumblr.com/  
> <3

The first thing he notices is the boy’s eyes.

They’re on Coruscant, at some political function that Tig doesn’t understand, and his mother’s talking to people with that voice he hates - the one that lilts all soft and false and uncomfortable. She laughs a lot. He can tell that most of the people in here think his family’s full of snakes. His family, the ones who supported the Empire like it was everything, because it was. His family, who only managed to scrape out of the mess of political shame and ruin by the skin of their teeth and the furious political savvy of his mother.

The boy with the eyes, though, isn’t looking at him like he’s a snake. He’s looking at him like he’s a puzzle.

He’s got on clothes that say he’s someone important, or at least that he’s the child of someone important, and he’s wearing some sort of flashy, ridiculous headpiece, jammed over his too-long, too-dark hair like he can’t stop fidgeting with it. His hair’s so long that Tig thinks he’s a girl from the back, but his eyes are really something else.

The rest of him’s all goofy and young, too stretched out and uncomfortable, but his eyes are immeasurably dark and sad. Like there’s someone else living in them. Tig feels like he’s falling into a black hole when he looks at him. Someone is talking and it takes a very long time for him to surface so he can hear.

“-Armitage.”

“Sorry, what?”

“I said, this is Ben, Armitage. He’s only a few years younger than you.”

Tig looks at this Ben boy again, narrows his eyes. He can see the insignia on his stupid headpiece now. It’s the filthy Republic, corrupt to the last, and he opens his mouth on a sneer to say just that.

The boy cuts him off.

“I hate it too. All the lying.”

Tig blinks. Ben continues talking, wringing his already too-large hands and looking around him in a big circle. Every so often his eyes land back on Tig’s face. Sometimes Ben’s eyes on him turn unnaturally sharp, like the opposite of a shadow passing over them, and it turns Tig’s stomach with this fleeting sliver of fear. It reminds him of the dog his father used for hunting at home, the one he never named. It fascinates him.

“You were thinking about corruption in politics, I think.”

The woman behind Ben, who looks very important indeed, makes a face that looks disappointed and – for just a second – afraid. She clicks her tongue and bends down to put her hand on the top of Ben’s head. His hair looks very soft.

“Ben, sweetheart, we’ve talked about this. You can’t just live in people’s heads like that. It’s very rude.”

Ben’s cheeks go red, and Tig notices how pale his skin is. He counts a few freckles under Ben’s eyes, across his forehead. They’re so dark against his skin they look like mistakes. Ben’s mumbling something.

“Can’t help it, he was thinking _so loud_ at me.”

Thinking loud? How could I be thinking at you?

Ben cracks a smile and his whole face looks like a broken, lopsided egg. Tig likes it very much.

“Like that,” Ben says.

Tig’s eyes go wide, he can feel it. Commandant Brendol Hux had always been very clear about what he called _that Jedi mysticism nonsense._ Entertaining conversations about such topics were not tolerated in the Hux house.

Ben looks carefully at Tig and he can’t tell if he’s being sized up as a friend or as prey.

“Do you want to see the ship we came in on?” Ben asks, honest and open and curious.

Tig nods.

 

 

The second time he meets the boy with the eyes, he doesn't even realize it. Hux (just Hux _just Hux)_ is a Lieutenant, and he’s just been assigned to a ship called the Finalizer. His boots are so clean he can see himself in them. When he passes through the halls, everyone salutes. Even his superior officers. _Superior for now_.

He has plans.

He passes by a terrible black cloud of a person, one of those awful mystics the Supreme Leader employs, and his whole body shivers with something dangerously like recognition. His step falters, just a tick. It throws off his whole rhythm. He doesn’t look behind him at the cloud, no matter how badly he wants to.

Hux no longer indulges such whims.

He turns to his Captain, a Tarkin - which Tarkin is almost irrelevant, as always - continues walking and poses his question as innocuously as possible.

“What was that….thing, we passed in D?”

The Tarkin shivers and swallows a few times. He looks visibly upset. Another Tarkin had been on the receiving end of Vader’s _mysticism_ enough times, publically enough, that the Tarkin’s fear of the Sith is universally accepted and understood in the Order. He lowers his voice as if the dark cloud of a person will be able to hear him.

“Apparently that’s the Supreme Leader’s _apprentice._ You know, Sith Lord mystics and all that.”

This is the closest Hux allows himself to gossip.

“Ah?”

The Tarkin makes an affirmative noise.

“Kylo Ren, they call him. He’s to be assigned this ship, when his training with the Supreme Leader is finished.”

Hux looks straight ahead and shakes off the itch between his shoulder blades.

 _Kylo Ren_ does not return to the Finalizer for a year.

 

The third time, Hux is a General. He is overseeing his pet project, the design of Starkiller Base. He drew the preliminary designs himself, with his own hands. A team of engineers already fleshed it out; all Hux needs now is a suitable skeleton planet.  For the first time since he was made General, Hux allows himself to feel _proud._

Ren is a terrible storm cloud over his days. He has answered countless inquiries and complaints about him, but still never seen him. Ren is a ghost, wreaking havoc on his ship, spreading fear and chaos in his every step, and Hux has never hated something so much. He hears his troopers gossiping in the mess hall from where he’s nursing a Caf with Phasma at the officer’s table. Phasma tilts her head in that way that lets him know she’s eavesdropping.

The conversation drifts in their direction.

“-heard he’s horribly disfigured under there, like his face is all melted and purple and stuff.”

“I mean, there’s no way he’s human, right?”

“Trig said she _saw_ his face once and he had _two faces_ , one on the back and one on the front-”

“Oh, come on. Trig is a liar and you know it.”

“Yeah, if she’d seen Kylo Ren’s face she’d be dead.”

“Actually, I heard if you see it _your eyes burn out_. It’s that horrible.”

A metallic huff sounds off to Hux’s right and it takes a moment to realize that Phasma is _laughing_. He turns to her and raises his eyebrows.

“Professional, Captain.”

Her voice is filtered through the vocoder but he can still hear the humor in it. She almost never removes her helmet except to spar, even here. He wonders distantly when she eats.

“Come on, General, don’t tell me you don’t find all this at least mildly entertaining.”

“I don’t.”

Hux can practically hear Phasma raising her eyebrows. He grips his Caf cup till his knuckles turn white.

“Ren’s… temper tantrums have seriously degraded the chain of command on my ship. He knows nothing of respect. Only fear.”

Phasma’s voice is tinny.

“And you think a balance of the two is necessary, I assume.”

Hux nods curtly.

“Encouraging this…gossip makes Ren’s ridiculous mysticism more… well, more mysterious. And that spreads unnecessary fear. Superfluous fear. There is nothing,” he looks up sharply, “I detest more than superfluity.” Hux takes a moment to gather himself. He’s rather upset. _Damn Ren._ “It does nothing for the troopers, and it does nothing for the Order.” He takes a sip to find his drink cold. “So no, I do not find this amusing, entertaining, or anything short of unacceptable, Captain.”

Phasma’s silence is weighted. He thinks she might be laughing at him.

“Oh, come off it General.”  

Hux can’t help it, a look of surprise makes its way onto his face.

“ _Excuse_ me?”

Phasma has not an ounce of apology or respect in her tone. There’s a strange sort of glee in her filtered voice he’s only ever heard when she’s fighting, or drunk.

“That’s all well and good, General, and no one can say the troops don’t respect you,” she levels a shiny finger at him, “but that’s not why you hate Kylo Ren.”

Were she anyone else other than who she is, Hux would have had her thrown out of an airlock for insolence years ago.

As it stands, she’s Phasma, and he’s curious.

“Enlighten me, then.”

Phasma takes off her helmet rather dramatically. He was right, there is a terrible smile in her eyes that tells him she’s laughing at his expense. The troopers know better than to look in her direction but it’s always a bit jarring to see that bright blonde hair under the helmet. Hux could never be sure which was more striking, or more sinister.

“You hate him,” she continues in a voice low enough that he understands why she’d removed her helmet, “because he _annoys_ you.”

Hux huffs an incredulous laugh.

Phasma remains unruffled.

“No one annoys you, General. You’re kriffing unflappable.”

Hux preens a little.

“Except with Kylo Ren. He _gets_ to you.” She grins widely at Hux’s scowl.

Right on time, Ren strides into the mess hall in a melodramatic swirl of dark robes. God, Hux hates him. He hasn’t actually seen him since Ren arrived on the ship, for the second time. Post “training,” whatever that was meant to mean. Ren stops at the officer’s table and Hux hates him even more for the drop of apprehension in his stomach.

“General.”

His helmet pitches his voice ridiculously low and threatening, and Hux’s lip curls. _Yet another thing Ren needs to_ fabricate _to instill fear._

He sighs and looks up at Ren’s towering form.

“What is it, Ren.”

“We are required. Immediately.”

Hux stands without a second thought and nods to Phasma. He addresses Ren without looking at him as they walk towards the audience chamber.

“Together?”

“It would appear so.”

The back of Hux’s neck prickles. He stands impossibly straighter as they round the last corner. Ren says nothing else.

Hux doesn’t fear Supreme Leader Snoke, per se. But somehow just the hologram superimposed onto that ridiculous throne is enough to raise the hairs on his neck and make his palms sweat. How Ren could stand to be _trained_ by that creature – whatever horrors that training entailed – Hux doesn’t know. Perhaps Ren really is a monster after all. Hux glances at Ren out of the corner of his eye.

He is never still, ever. He carries himself like a caged animal, constantly pacing, shoulders tense. Mysticism or not, his presence is oppressive the second he’s in a room. Dark, heavy, _noticeable_. His hands clench and unclench, like he’s constantly stopping himself from grabbing that weapon at his side. He is never still, ever.

Except now.

Not a single muscle moves as they stand in front of the door to the audience chamber. Hux isn’t even sure Ren is breathing. Does he need to breathe? What _is_ Ren, exactly?

Unimportant. Hux shakes himself mentally. Ren is unimportant, a plague on his ship and his crew, an overemotional, overindulgent hysterical _child,_ and he shouldn’t waste a thought on him. He has a base to oversee. The door opens and they take a deep breath in unison and step inside.

Snoke’s hulking hologram towers over them, as usual. Hux suppresses a shiver. Ren remains disconcertingly still. It bothers Hux for reasons he doesn’t understand.

“General Hux,” Snoke’s voice booms like he is truly there with them.

“Supreme Leader.”

“I understand the plans for Starkiller base are nearly complete.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader. My men are compiling a list of planets suitable for building the base. Scouting should commence shortly.” Hux tries his hardest not to smirk.

“Scouting will commence immediately, General.”

Hux blinks. Snoke raises a huge ghostly hand.

“My Knights of Ren have found a planet. Kylo Ren himself saw it in a dream. You will scout it yourself.”

“My- myself? Supreme Leader, surely there are soldiers more suited to—”

 “Silence, General.”

Hux shuts his mouth.

Snoke continues.

“This is _your_ responsibility, is it not?”

 “Yes, Supreme Leader.”

“Then you will go. And you will take Kylo Ren.”

Hux’s temper flares at that.

“Ren knows _nothing_ of the necessary parameters for Starkiller base. It is utterly unnecessary that he be there.”

Snoke’s expression darkens impossibly. Hux almost flinches. Something horribly inhuman lives in Snoke’s eyes, something he can see even through the hologram.

“Kylo Ren has seen this planet. _I_ have seen it. The Force has led us to it, and as such he _must_ accompany you. You know nothing of the workings of the Force, General. This planet is important. Its importance must be sensed. A Knight must be present.”

Hux swallows. Ren has still said nothing, has made no move. Hux doesn’t understand why they needed to be here together. He doesn’t understand any of this.

“Kylo Ren.”

“Master.” Ren’s fabricated voice filters through his ridiculous helmet. It vibrates through the soles of Hux’s boots.

“You understand the importance of this mission.”

“Yes, Master.”

“You understand what will happen should you fail.”

Ren shivers, almost imperceptibly.

“Yes, Master.”

Somehow, Hux understands that witnessing this shiver is the reason Snoke called them here together. Almost immediately after this thought Ren’s head tilts in his direction and Snoke speaks sharply.

“General, you are dismissed. You will depart for Kuru in the morning.”

Hux bows. “Supreme Leader.”

As the door slides shut behind him Hux gets the unshakable feeling that the audience chamber is filling up with something very cold and very heavy. He is immeasurably grateful to be out of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to @El_Bell for being like an angel with no wings (so, like, a person) and providing encouragement.
> 
> ps, yes when Hux was a smol angel I called him Tig because it reminds me of a tiny redheaded tiger and is the cutest nickname for Armitage ever and you can't stop me, s/o El_Bell again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The landing on Kuru does not go as planned.

When they depart for Kuru in the morning, Hux counts a team of five.  _ Five  _ soldiers. Including himself and Ren. Two of the Finalizer’s superior officers and three troopers. All for scouting one uninhabited Outer Rim desert planet.  _ Superfluous.  _ Hux opts to ride in the hold with the troopers, while Ren disappears into the bowels of the transport ship. The troopers are silent, sitting with their heads down across from Hux. He sighs.

 “What are your designations.”

 All three snap their heads up and answer “Sir!” at once.

The one on the far right says, “TR-1040, sir. My … my friends call me Trig, sir.” Her voice stumbles over the second bit, as if she isn’t sure if Hux needs to know that or not. Hux puts away his irritation at the situation and tries to soften his expression. It isn’t his soldiers’ fault, after all. He’s found that conversation with the low ranking troops tends to boost morale and increase trust, and –  _ no matter what Ren seems to think –  _ trust and respect have taken Hux farther than fear alone ever did.

“Why do they call you that?” He asks, not unkindly.

She looks down at her hands, and when she speaks again there’s something of a smile in her voice. “Cause I’m the best damn shot in my squad, sir. Trigger. That’s me.”

The soldier next to her bumps her gently with their shoulder. He’s the tallest, even sitting down. He answers next.

“TR-0000, sir. Just Zero, if you like, sir.”

The soldier on the far left has not moved since Hux came into the hold, and is by far the smallest. She looks up at Hux and puts her hand over her heart.

“TR-1875. Sir.”

Hux raises his eyebrows. “No nickname for you, then, TR-1875?”

“No, sir. TR-1875.”

There’s something in her voice that tells Hux she has been to reconditioning several times recently. Trig shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

He had requested the members of TR squad be sent on this scouting mission 10 cycles ago, long before he thought he’d be going himself. It was something of a relief that they were here. Just in case.

He looked over all three of them carefully. “Trig. Zero. TR-1875.”

“Sir!”

“I trust you are aware of what we are to be doing on this mission?”

“Gathering readings for the Engineering team for Starkiller Base, sir,” says Trig.

“Scouting the exterior of the planet to ensure it’s suitable to maintain construction for long periods of time, sir,” says Zero.

“Taking core readings from the interior of the planet to ensure  _ it’s  _ suitable to maintain Starkiller’s energy intake and output, sir,” deadpans TR-1875.

Hux nods. “And I trust you understand why I requested that members of the Terra squad be the ones to carry this out?”

Zero sits up a bit straighter and his voice through his helmet is surprised. “You…you requested us, sir?”

“He didn’t request  _ us _ , idiot, he requested TR.” Trig smacks her hand over her mouth. Over her helmet. “Sorry, sir. That was out of line, sir.” The corner of Hux’s mouth threatens to pull up, and he makes a mental note to keep an eye on Trig during this mission. He may need to send her to reconditioning.

“Because we have Terra simulation training, sir,” says TR-1875. “We know how to take the proper readings in unfamiliar Terra environments. Kuru is a desert planet, sir. There will probably be…inclement weather. We understand how to deal with that better than some other squads.” 

Hux nods curtly. “Correct, TR-1875.”

“Sir…”

“Trig?”

“If it’s not out of line, sir… Can I ask…”

Hux sighs.  

“Sir, why are you and Commander Ren here?” 

_ Fuck if I know, Trig.  _ “That is above your clearance, Trig.” 

Trig looks down. “Of course, sir. My apologies.”

An automated voice sounds from above their heads, “Atmospheric Entry in 5 minutes.”

Hux stands and addresses the troopers at parade rest.

“Are you ready?”

All three reply in unison, “Yes sir!”

“Strap in, then.”

Hux goes to investigate the autopilot’s cockpit and preliminary surface readings for the last 5 minutes.

He finds Ren sitting in the copilot’s chair next to the pilot droid, gazing comfortably through the transparisteel at Kuru’s surface, hands behind his head and looking decidedly un-Renlike. Hux clears his throat and Ren starts violently.

“General.”

“Ren.”

A sound comes through Ren’s helmet, and it takes a moment for Hux to realize he’s cleared his throat. “What are you doing in here?”

The surface of the planet is beautiful, rather unexpectedly so. Bright orange and brown, swirled into a solid mass like a marble. There’s not a single mountain, river, or valley that Hux can see on the surface. It’s perfectly smooth.

Hux huffs. “I just came to make sure the landing went smoothly. What are  _ you _ doing in here?”

Ren doesn’t turn around, but flicks a lever on the copilot’s side of the console. “You came to make sure the  _ landing went smoothly? _ ” There’s something mocking in Ren’s voice. “Did you become a pilot while I was away, General?”

As always with Ren’s presence, Hux finds himself too easily irritated. “Did you?” he snaps.

Ren’s silence is heavier than the situation seems to call for. His presence, like a coat over Hux’s shoulders, shifts somewhat. Like Ren’s pulling it into himself. Thinking. Looking for something.

Ren suddenly sits up, alert and stiff. He grips the console with a gloved hand. “General.”

Hux squints at the surface of Kuru. It looks… liquid where it had been solid seconds before. Ren’s vocoder doesn’t hide the apprehension in his low voice.

“Hold onto something.”

An automated voice says, “Atmospheric irregularity detected.” Hux gets a hand on the back of Ren’s chair before their transport ship starts to shake. Violently. The lights go red and several levers flip of their own accord, trying to level the ship out. As soon as they enter the atmosphere, Hux understands.

There’s a wall of gold-orange sand battering the ship, a storm quite literally out of nowhere. He grips the back of Ren’s chair with both hands and rather regrets not finding a seat. His white knuckles are touching Ren’s hulking shoulders.

“This is about to get worse, General,” Ren says, voice eerily calm and distant. “Hold onto me.”

Hux wonders if the lights and the alarm are messing with his head. “ _ Excuse  _ me?”

“Just do it, you stubborn bantha.”

Something in Ren’s tone sounds… Hux can’t work it out. The ship rocks so far to the side they might be upside down. He grips Ren’s shoulders on instinct, the only human reaction to the feeling of falling, and immediately feels…better. Stable. Safer. The lights are less red, the alarms dimmer in his mind. He feels righted, despite the fact that he can see the ship is practically upside down.

“Ren?”

“Shut up, I’m concentrating.”

Hux has never heard this tone from Ren before. The ship’s automated voice sounds out again, “incoming foreign object, northwest at .8 kilometers. .2 kilomet-”

Something hits the ship. Ren flings out a hand in front of him and a rock comes to an abrupt halt in front of the window, about half the size of their ship. A piece of one of their thrusters is stuck in it. 

“How in the seven hells did that rock get up here?”

Ren closes his hand into a fist viciously and the rock disintegrates into dust. “It would appear…the winds on Kuru are rather stronger than we thought.” His voice sounds like he’s panting through his helmet.

“Thruster 3 damaged.”

“Yes, we know!” Hux snaps at the automated voice in the ceiling. His hands tighten on Ren’s shoulders.

“Incoming foreign obj-”

Ren’s hand flies out again, catching the second rock before it can hit them. Hux has never seen the Force before. He’s fairly certain he’s feeling it in a bubble around him and Ren right now, that it’s holding them straight somehow while their ship flips end over end toward the ground. His heart feels stuck in his throat.

“Incoming forei-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”

Ren huffs an impossible laugh at Hux’s outburst even as he catches two rocks at once, smaller at least, hurling them away from the windows. Hux wonders distantly how the troopers are holding up in the back.

“Ren, can you land this ship?”

Ren shakes his head. “I can either keep us upright and stop this storm from tearing the hull apart, or I can land this ship.” He makes a pushing motion with one hand and holds the other in front of his own chest. The bubble around them feels more stable, stronger, warmer. “Take your pick, General.”

Hux takes a sliding, unsure step in the direction of the pilot droid’s seat. Ren turns in his direction and a rock slams into the window at his lapse in concentration. A thin crack dances up the right side. A  _ crack _ .

_ What the fuck is this planet made of? _

“I can do it, just keep…keeping me upright. You’re doing that, right?” Hux keeps a hand on Ren’s shoulder and pushes the droid out of the pilot’s seat. He slides in himself.

“Yes,” Ren says, strained. “Can you—”

“Ren,” says Hux, buckling himself into the seat and flipping a few switches, “if you’re about to ask me if a General of the First Order knows how to pilot a spacecraft, kindly fuck off back to your big rocks.”   

Ren looks at him for one stretched-out, impossibly silent moment and Hux can almost feel his curiosity inside the bubble keeping them straight, but he turns back to the window to throw both hands out just in time to catch something impossibly enormous and throw it away from the ship.

Hux disables the autopilot and grabs the helm with one hand, the other still white-knuckled on Ren’s shoulder. Despite his indignation at Ren’s doubt, it has been…a while since he’s had to pilot something. And in conditions like the ones they’re currently in… well, Hux isn’t sure he’s ever piloted anything in conditions like this. He takes a deep breath and finds himself squeezing Ren’s shoulder. The bubble gives some sort of squeeze back, almost comforting. Hux hates it.

“Ren, I can’t see anything and these scanners can’t see anything—”

“The sand is metallic, General. It’s fucking with the scanners.”

Hearing that word come through Ren’s awful modulated helmet throws the whole situation into a new level of surreal.

“Is it,” he hates putting even a modicum of faith in Ren’s  _ abilities,  _ even as they’re actively saving his life, “is it safe to land here?”  

Ren turns to him, his head tilting quickly in Hux’s direction and then back out at the planet below.

“Mostly.”

Hux groans.

“I’ll tell you where.”

Hux groans louder.

It’s a very uncomfortable, very bumpy, very sweaty 4 minutes of blind flying before Hux has the ship righting itself a few kilometers from the ground.

“Left, General, you need to go left  _ now.” _

Hux turns, and out of the lessening storm looms a huge metallic rock face, missing the hull of the ship by meters.

“By all means, take your time with these instructions, Ren!”

“Pull up.”

His voice is quiet and calm, like he’s meditating, somehow sounding like his eyes are closed, and the tone of it (-grounded,  _ safe _ -) causes Hux to relax foolishly.

“ _ Now.” _

Hux pulls up. Something scrapes the bottom of the ship but no breach alarms sound.

“Okay, land here.”

Hux rolls his eyes, executes a  _ very _ bumpy landing, and glares at Ren through sweaty orange hair.

Ren looks, of course, exactly the same as before. Hux begins to wonder what his face (or not-face) looks like under there. But the tone of Ren’s voice is lilting, teasing, when he says, “well, I think that went well, don’t you?” 

___________________________________

 

The metal sand and wind is still battering the ship when Hux and Ren make their way back into the hold to check on the troopers, but it’s slightly less of a cacophony than before. Hux opens the door and stumbles gracelessly inside, still trying to find his bearings after being essentially held still inside a metal washing machine by a mystical unseen Force for the last 10 minutes.

The troopers are still strapped into their seats, but it’s a close thing. All three of them have lost their helmets and TR-1875’s head is disconcertingly red. She isn’t moving. None of them are moving.

Ren lingers in the doorway while Hux walks over to check TR-1875’s vitals. His hand is sticky with blood when he feels for the pulse on her neck. There isn’t one.

Ren points at her. “She’s gone. I felt her presence extinguished a few minutes into atmo.”

Hux looks over at him and raises his eyebrows. Ren shrugs.

“It was…rough. Back here. She hit her head.”

Hux nods.

He goes to Zero next, gingerly inspecting his head and neck before concluding he’s unconscious, not dead.

Trig is conscious, Hux thinks, but her breathing is uneven and too fast. Hux touches both of her cheeks and gently tilts her head up, conscious of head and neck injuries. Her eyes flicker open. They’re so dark Hux has a hard time assessing the state of her pupils, but he thinks they’re dilated. Just concussed, then.

Hux keeps his voice soft. “Trig?”

“Mmm?”

She looks at him without really seeing him. He snaps his fingers in front of her face impatiently. “Trig, look at me.”

“General Hux?”

“That’s right.”

“General  _ Hux _ .”

Hux sighs. “What happened back here?”

“Bumpy.” Her head pitches forward and Hux catches her by the forehead. Her neck is a swivel and the side of her face is bloody.

“Yes, I know. I mean, why did you take your helmets off?”  _ Stupid, stupid children. You practically concussed yourselves. _

Trig’s eyes flicker over Hux’s face and sharpen a little. “Couldn’t breathe. The helmets…don’t absorb shock. Anyway.”

Hux looks at the ceiling.

“You were afraid? That’s why you took them off?”

“Couldn’t  _ breathe _ , sir.”

“Yes, yes,” Hux says impatiently. He looks back at Ren, who’s kneeling in front of Zero with his hand over his face. Hux has heard of Ren interrogating prisoners this way.

“Ren, we need him to remain alive, please.”

Ren’s helmet has a dent in it. He huffs in Hux’s direction. “That’s what I’m doing, General. His mind is…I’m putting it back together.”

_ Putting it back together? _

“Yes, putting it back together,” Ren snaps.

Hux blinks. Did Ren just answer… no. He’s probably concussed as well. Ren could invade minds in interrogations, but he couldn’t  _ hear  _ them like spoken words. Could he?

Focus, Hux.

“Trig, do you know where you are?”

“General, you have. Very pretty hair.”

Hux rolls his eyes and Ren huffs a laugh through his helmet.

“Focus, you stupid girl.”

“Sorry sir. Focus…ing. Focusing. I’m focused. I’m here.  _ Pretty _ General.”

Ren’s huff of laughter morphs into something resembling giggles. Hux looks sharply at him.

“She’s got rather serious head trauma, Ren.”

Ren shakes his head and his laughter trails off. Hux has never heard him laugh before, he wants it to be more sinister than it is, and he’d had hardly heard him  _ speak  _ before this morning, and again he can hardly comprehend the surrealism of the situation. Ren drops his hand from Zero’s face.

“This one will be fine. He’ll have a headache, a bad one. But his mind is as back together as I could manage.” He rises to walk over to where Hux is crouched next to Trig’s drooping form. “He might have some memory problems.”

When Ren’s hulking shadow of a body crouches in front of Trig’s face, a look of complete and perfect terror clouds her eyes. She starts to shake.

“N-no. No no no no no.  _ Monster. _ ”

Ren stills. Hux tries to ask Trig another question, but she’s shaking so violently she can hardly look Hux in the eye.

“Trig, what do you remember? Are you with me?”

“Monster, it’s a monster, General  _ please!” _

The girl’s voice is frantic, terrified, and Hux worries she’s somehow damaging herself further in her utter panic.

Ren’s head drops. He looks at Hux, then back at Trig, then back at Hux again. He reaches behind his head and undoes the latch of his helmet. Hux’s eyes go wide and he shakes his head.  _ What is this moron doing? _

“Ren you’re going to kill this girl, she’ll die of fright,  _ we need her _ .”

Ren ignores him and slides the helmet off his head. 

Hux wants to keep his eyes on Trig, wants to assure her that he’s not going to let her die, but he can’t help the way his attention shifts to Ren’s newly exposed face. He can’t help it. He’s  _ so  _ overwhelmingly curious. He was foolish to pretend he wasn’t curious.

His jaw drops.

Ren’s decidedly not disfigured. That registers first. What registers next, against Hux’s will, is that Ren is…

Beautiful.

His hair is long and dark, darker than Trig’s, and it’s stuck to his face with sweat, connecting the freckles and marks on his forehead like constellations. His cheeks are flushed – Hux feels better not being the only one – and his cheekbones are impossibly high and regal. His nose is ridiculous. It physically pains Hux to contemplate Ren’s mouth, so he doesn’t. His eyes are –

Familiar. That’s the next thought that registers.

He’s  _ familiar _ . He knows this face. How does he know this face?

Ren’s talking to Trig in a soft, dark voice that makes Hux’s toes curl. Trig’s eyes glaze over. She flutters her eyelashes and a dreamy smile replaces the outright terror on her face. Ren’s gloved hand touches her face, pushes her hair back from her forehead. She closes her eyes.

“Trig, can you hear me?”

Her eyes remain closed.

“Yes.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“ _ Commander Ren _ .”

“You can trust me, can’t you, Trig?” he asks, soft and terrifying in a way Hux can’t place. Something warm and comfortable is...surrounding Ren, leaking out of him. Trig is leaning towards it like it’s a magnet. Hux can  _ feel  _ his persuasion like a warm, physical presence. The sheer realness of it, the weight of it, frightens him. 

“You can trust me, Trig.” 

“ _ Yes _ .”

“Good girl. Can you open your eyes for me?”

She does, and her mouth falls open like she’s seeing Ren for the first time again.

Hux…doesn’t exactly blame her.

Ren’s mouth curls at one end and Hux again has the fleeting feeling that Ren can hear his thoughts. He makes a fist against the floor and focuses on the trooper.

“Do you know where you are?”

“On…On Kuru, Commander.”

Ren nods, smiling gently. There’s something… dark in his eyes. Something squirming and manipulative, but that isn’t what’s bothering Hux. There’s also something soft there, open. Kind, almost. Hux looks away from his face.

“Tell me how you feel.”

“I feel…wonderful.”

Ren shakes his head and nods over at Hux. “Tell the General how you feel, then.”

Trig fixes a watery, wide-eyed stare on Hux and says, “General, I feel fuzzy. My head hurts.”

“What else?”

“My stomach hurts. Is Zero dead?”

Hux shakes his head. Trig sags a little in her seat.

Her voice wavers when she asks, “what are we going to  _ do?” _

Ren grips her shoulder and she looks back at him. That warm bubble from before is expanding again, touching the trooper and making her already glassy eyes look downright empty.

“What can you tell me about this planet?”

Her voice is flat and vacant when she answers, her expression drugged.

“Kuru-IIV is a Class 4 metallic desert planet on the Outer Rim with a breathable oxygen rich atmosphere and frequent sandstorms.” She looks over at Hux hazily. “High winds. No life.” 

Hux looks angrily at Ren’s beautiful face. “You saw this planet in a  _ dream? _ Were you dreaming of the  _ apocalypse?  _ It’s impossible to build here. These storms tore a ship out of the sky. You  _ imbecile. _ ”

Ren smiles crookedly, then makes an aborted movement towards his face as if he’s forgotten he doesn’t have his helmet on. His expression shutters and hardens and he stands up. Trig looks bereft the further he gets from her. Panicked, almost. Her eyes are still glassy. Hux feels a true thrill of fear for the Force.

“Commander, where-where are you going?”

Ren waves a hand impatiently in Trig’s direction.

“Go to sleep.”

She collapses.

Hux stands sharply and turns to face him, the storm dying outside.

“I hope you’ve healed her concussion too, otherwise you’ve just put our only functioning soldier into a coma.”

Ren’s already climbing out of the hold and back toward the cockpit. He turns to speak to Hux over his shoulder. “She’ll be fine, General. And don’t say that.” He turns around and Hux follows his huge back toward their only window. “I’m not a healer.”

They stand shoulder to shoulder and look out the cracked viewport.

The storm is dead, and there isn’t a single wisp of wind to suggest it was ever even there. The sand is heavy, solid, unmovable. It seems impossible that this is the same planet it was 5 minutes ago. There’s nothing but burning, bright orange and gold dunes of metal in all directions; no mountains, no caves, no rocks. Nothing. Even the sky is a clear, brilliant, cloudless blue for miles. As if the storm was all a terrible dream.

“This is…not good.”

The tone of Ren’s voice without his helmet is horribly close and intimate. Human.

Somehow, the idea that Ren was a human had never occurred to Hux. He was too big, too intimidating, too infuriating, too powerful. He simply  _ wasn’t _ a human being in Hux’s mind. Hux was fairly certain Ren wasn’t a human being in the mind of anyone aboard the Finalizer. A monster, yes, certainly. A warrior, probably. A huge pain in his ass, obviously. But a human being?

And familiar.

“Ben.”

Ren whirls around with an expression so twisted and painful on his face that Hux physically recoils. He can  _ feel  _ the pain of it, the pain caused by that name, gathering around him like a physical presence, coming from Ren like he’s broadcasting it. It feels awful, cold and lonely and deep inside the bottom of Hux’s chest. He holds up his hands and the expression in Ren’s eyes dies as suddenly as the storm outside. He turns back around and doesn’t respond.

Hux knows he shouldn’t push, but he does anyway.

Ren glances at him again, seemingly unable to help himself.

“I…recognize your face.”

“Yes.”

Ren’s voice is soft, so much softer than it is out of his helmet. Everything about him is soft. Hux understands why he wears it. Ren’s face, his voice, his  _ eyes _ . He’s an exposed nerve. His face is vulnerable in a thousand horrible ways, his voice projecting suffering in every syllable. It’s painfully personal to look at him. Just looking at Ren’s face is the most intimate thing Hux has done in years. He remembers Phasma saying something in the officer’s lounge once, fuzzy with alcohol, about how she thought Ren’s helmet probably protected his deformities. Like life support.

She was right.

Hux takes a step forward, compelled by the openness of those impossibly dark eyes.

“Ren, why do I recognize your face?”

“Because I share a face with a dead boy you met on Coruscant.”

Ren puts his helmet back on. He turns back around to face the unmoving landscape of metal sand outside.

“We need to repair this ship,” Ren says. The cold modulation of his voice, the bass of it vibrating through the metal hull of the ship, almost brings Hux comfort. It is infinitely preferable to the way Hux felt hearing Ren speak to him in his real voice: like he was holding Ren’s bloody lungs in his hands.

Hux takes a deep breath and puts it out of his mind. He has a ship to repair.

“Let’s get started.” 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi: If you are thinking that you hate characters who exist for the sole purpose of exposition, know that I also hate characters who exist for the sole purpose of exposition but it just didn't seem realistic that Ren and Hux would go to this planet without a team of soldier minions. Don't worry, they're not big parts of the story.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuru provides Hux with a revelation. He is ... resistant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In other news, I made a playlist for these fuckers. I've been listening to it while writing.   
> Please, share in my misery: http://8tracks.com/ajaxthegreat/that-crown-don-t-make-you-a-prince

Over a day later, neither of them has gotten any sleep and Ren has the entire cockpit ripped up, sitting in pieces around him. The ship is about as hot as any contained metal oven would be inside another, planet-sized metal oven. Hux is miserable.

He’s sitting inside the floor of the cockpit, uniform ruined, shirt sleeves pushed up and covered in grease and more than a few electrical burns, reconnecting the intricate series of wires that run from the console to the broken thrusters. He can feel grease in his hair and he  _ hates  _ it.

He and Ren had determined that it would be easier to bypass the broken third thruster entirely than to fix it on an uninhabited planet, so they devised a plan to fool the ship into thinking it only had two thrusters to begin with. The problem with that plan was that it ended up taking  _ forever _ , and they only had two pairs of hands. And Ren’s were far too big and hulking to do the electrical work – at least that’s what Hux had yelled at him 5 hours in, sweaty and frustrated and on his last frayed nerve.

So now to avoid further…emotional outbursts, Hux is on one side of the cockpit, waist deep in wires, with Ren on the other side doing…something. Hux assumes he’s just ripping things out and putting them in a pile on the floor.

Also on the floor are Ren’s robes, his shoes, and, regrettably, his helmet. Hux had glanced over in his direction when the sun came up, about to ask what he was hoping to accomplish in his fit of destruction over there, only to be met with, well. Ren sitting shoeless and open-faced, sweating through a frankly inappropriately tight shirt, cursing to himself and reattaching a 40 kilogram alternator through the wall with one hand. His hair had been wet with sweat, dripping onto his shoulders. 

Hux had accidentally ripped one of the wires out of the wall. He did not look in Ren’s direction again for the rest of the day. 

Once the sun sets, the ship mercifully cools down. When it gets too dark to see properly Hux sets his tangle of wires off to the side and heaves himself back up onto the floor of the cockpit. Ren is still rummaging around under the console on his back – Hux can see his bare feet poking out, blue in the dim light. They’re enormous.

They’ve carefully avoided talking, or interacting at all, while Ren has his helmet off. It seems a sort of unspoken agreement between the two of them: Hux feels uncomfortable and intrusive looking at Ren’s bare face, listening to his voice, so he’s avoided it and Ren’s followed suit.

It cannot be avoided always, however.

“Ren.”

“Hm?”

Hux folds his filthy arms over his chest. “Did you kill our troopers?”

Ren’s voice is muffled by the console, nothing above his legs visible. “No.”  

“It’s been almost two days, Ren. Neither of them has woken up. If they’re dead, we’re going to need to reassess our situation.”

Ren slides out from under the console in a motion so fluid and practiced it startles Hux. There are grease marks on his forearms and dirt smeared over one of his cheekbones. He looks like a mechanic.

“They’re not dead, General. They’re just asleep.”

“Ren, normal people don’t sleep for 36 hours after they’ve been grievously concussed.”

Ren rolls his eyes. “Hux, they’re  _ fine _ .”

A shiver runs through Hux at the sound of his name in that voice. His toes curl in his shoes and his whole back feels warm and he wants to close his eyes and this needs to end, immediately. Hux meets Ren’s eyes for the first time all day. “Do not address me that way,  _ Commander _ .” He spits the title at him with perhaps more derision than is strictly necessary, then turns on his heel and walks toward the hold where the troopers are, impossibly, still asleep. Without turning around he adds, “we are not comrades. We are not friends. Just because you showed me your filthy face does not mean … anything.” He makes a very tight fist at his side. “It’s too dark to continue, we will pick this up in the morning. I’m going to make sure you haven’t murdered our soldiers.”

He walks out, just barely hearing a distantly muffled, “…yes, General.” 

 

Trig and Zero are asleep on the floor of the hanger, helmets still off, faces still bloody. Still breathing. They look as dead as they could be. Hux steps around them with a bit too much practice; he’s used to stepping over bodies. He’d insisted on seeing combat even when his father had gone on about how it wasn’t necessary, how he was going to be an officer, how simulations were more than enough. But Hux knew he needed it. He didn’t just want his soldiers to fear his name and rank. He wanted his soldiers to be  _ his soldiers,  _ men and women he commanded with blood on his face and hands, men and women who knew exactly what kind of man Hux was, staring down the sight of his sniper rifle. Men and women whose corpses he spent 10 years stepping over. 

He tries not to think of that now, feels a flicker of annoyance for Ren and his complete disregard for the chain of military command. Ren who stormed onto his ship flashing the title of  _ Commander _ , Ren who had never directed troops in battle. Hux grits his teeth and crouches next to Zero.

Zero’s eyebrows scrunch up like he’s having a bad dream, and Hux snaps his fingers in front of his face. Zero opens his eyes, confused and very blue.

“…General?”

Hux nods. He’s exhausted. He’s sure he looks nothing like the General Hux Zero has been conditioned to love and admire. He speaks sharply, exhaustion breeding impatience.

“What do you remember?”

Zero blinks very slowly.

“I….” He closes his eyes, screws them shut like he’s trying to block something out. “I…don’t know. It’s…hard.”

“Oh, gods.”

“I…got hurt. And then…Commander Ren. Commander Ren was there. He…” Zero groans and tries to grab his head. Hux stops him.

“Bad idea, TR.”

Zero’s brows knit together. “That’s not… my name. General.”

Hux blinks.

“My name’s…Zero. Zero’s my name. My friends…picked it.”

Hux lifts a hand to his face and pinches the bridge of his nose, then mumbles “fuck this” to himself and storms back out of the hanger to yell at Ren.

Zero passes back out.

Hux enters the cockpit just as the moon is rising through the viewport, the whole room lit up silver and blue against the glittering sand. It’s so bright that Hux has no trouble at all making Ren out where he’s sat under the console, hands braced over his knees, drinking something that looks like…

“Is that the solvent you were using to strip the bolts?”

Ren looks down at the bottle in his hands.

“Yep.”

Suddenly the entire weight of this ridiculous day bears down on Hux’s shoulders all at once, and it’s almost like Ren’s presence is pushing him down to sit under the console. He puts his back against the mess of parts and sits mimicking Ren. He sighs very loudly. He’s so tired.

“Tired, General?”

Hux nods, closing his eyes.

Ren hands him the bottle of solvent. Hux looks at it like it’s something stuck to his shoe; the way he looks at mostly everything. He takes it anyway, sniffing the top.

“Ugh.”

Ren’s naked face cracks into a smile, half hidden from the moon under the console. Hux is grateful for the dark. He can’t take looking at Ren like this right now. His emotions show so easily on his face, like he still thinks he’s wearing the mask, and it makes Hux embarrassed for him. He has so many questions, so many things to think about, so many things to fix. He asks the one question that floats on the top of his mind, rootless. The easiest one.

“Why are you drinking this?”

“This is going to take a very long time, General.”

Hux looks over at him and Ren is staring straight ahead. “It’s going to take a very long time and the crash destroyed almost all our emergency rations.”

“How much do we have?” 

“For four people? 5 days of water, tops. 2 days of food.” 

“What about for two people?”

Ren looks over at him. “Not much more. But if you want the troopers dead you can do it yourself.”

Hux processes that for a second, blinking slowly, then raises the solvent to his lips and takes a disgusting gulp.

He coughs. “Tastes like … solvent.”

Ren barks out just one harsh laugh. Hux passes the bottle back to him. They sit in silence for a long time, Hux doing the mental math to determine when exactly they will die.

He isn’t sure how long they sit there in silence together, but Hux’s head starts to spin after a while. He supposes drinking something that’s meant to strip the grease off engine parts will do that to you.

“Ren?” His voice is thicker than he’d like.

“Mm?”

Ren’s eyes are closed and his head is bumping gently against the wall over and over again.

“What did you do to Zero?”

Ren stops moving his head and opens his eyes to stare ahead again. His voice is far away, a little slow.

“Think of it like…spackling a wall.”

“Spackling. A. Wall.”

“Yeah, you know what that is?”

Hux grunts.

“Oh, excuse me General, not all of us grew up with people to do that sort of thing  _ for  _ us.” 

Hux bites his tongue on the question  _ how did you grow up _ but by now he’s pretty sure Ren can hear him thinking it. It must count for something that he doesn’t speak it, at least.

Ren sighs. “Spackling a wall is—”

“Just because I’ve never had to do it doesn’t mean I don’t know what it  _ is _ , Ren. I’m not a total idiot.”

Ren huffs again.

“The Force is…well, you can…” Ren trails off, waving his hands ineffectually through the air. He gives up. “Whatever. I spackled his mind with the Force.”

Hux doesn’t understand if it’s the heat he’s been forced to endure all day, or the creeping cold of the desert, or the frankly ridiculous series of events, or the alcohol or Ren’s impossibly close presence or the fact that they’re going to starve to death, but he can’t help it. He laughs.

He laughs so hard that he’s doubled over, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes.

He sniffs, dissolving into laughter again for a few minutes and then finally, finally quiets. Ren’s watching him with something in his face, but it’s so dark under the console that Hux can’t see what it is.

He ignores it. “Well, I think you put too much Ren in there. The kid’s going on about his  _ name _ . He no longer answers to his designation. It’s going to be a nightmare to fix--”

But they’re not going to fix it, because they’re never getting off this planet alive.

Hux hangs his head, dangling the bottle of solvent between his propped up knees.

He whispers, “it’s going to be a nightmare to fix.”

Ren’s looking at him again.

“General.”

Hux looks up and Ren’s holding his hand out for the bottle. He hands it over. Ren drinks it like he’s dying of thirst. Hux gestures at the bottle.

“Don’t you mystics take some sort of vow against this type of thing?”

Ren says nothing but shakes his head.

Hux is suddenly seized by an all-consuming rage for Ren and his mystic Jedi  _ bullshit _ . He slams his hands down on the floor, the sound ringing out too loud, and scrambles out from under the console. It’s so bright in the cockpit Hux thinks for a second that it’s day – but Kuru’s moon is just impossibly close. Huge. Silver. Ridiculous like this whole day. He whirls around to face Ren’s legs, poking out of the bottom of the console. He yells at Ren’s bare feet.

“How did you not see this, Ren?”

Ren says nothing.

“How did you look in at this kriffing planet with your stupid Force-user bullshit and see ‘important’ and not see ‘the important place where I’m going to drag Hux out to die,’ you absolutely useless creature?”

Again, Ren says nothing. Hux hears him put the bottle on the floor.

“How can you sit there getting  _ shitfaced  _ when you  _ led  _ us here, you did this to us, you doomed us, you  _ childish, shortsighted, idiotic Sith _ ?”

Nothing.

“ _Fuck_ you, Ren. Fuck you and your vague, nebulous, psychic _shit_.” Hux spits on the floor. “Fuck you _.”_

Ren stirs, unfolding his giant body from under the console and dropping heavily into the copilot’s chair. Hux is still standing, towering over him, red-faced and furious. Ren looks tired when he meets Hux’s eyes. It’s so bright in the room, so silver it hurts.

“That’s not how the Force works, General,” Ren sighs. Like he’s resigned. Almost like he’s…content. Or something close to it.

“Are you  _ kidding  _ me, did you want this, Ren? Did you pull me on some sort of suicide mission to this stupid planet?” Hux is raising his voice, aware of the metallic ring of it through the belly of the ship.

Ren shakes his head, offers nothing else. Hux falls into the pilot’s seat, runs a hand through his hair.

“So we’re going to die.”

“Barring some sort of miracle, yes.”

“Why?”

Ren’s eyebrows pull together. “Because we don’t have the manpower or the engineers to fix this ship; we took TR troopers instead of EN troopers. And because  _ I  _ don’t have the power to carry this ship out of this atmosphere. It’s too big.” His voice falters and he repeats himself, quiet and low. “It’s too big.”

Hux doesn’t have time for Ren’s pity party, he’s fixated on something else.

“So are you telling me that if we had a smaller, contained transport ship, you could get us out of atmo and back to the Finalizer?”

Ren throws up his hands in a gesture so confused and human Hux doesn’t know what to do with it.

“General, even if I could guide a smaller ship back to the Finalizer, we still have no power to get us off the ground. Not to mention the troopers.”

“Oh, sod the troopers, Ren.”

Ren looks up at him, expression almost  _ betrayed _ , absurdly. “Okay…but even if we leave them here, we still have no—”

Ren sits up with all the drunken revelation of someone who’s just had a very bad idea.

“I can rig the outside of the ship to use the storms.”

Hux raises his eyebrows so high they disappear into his forehead.

“You can  _ what?” _

Ren is talking very fast. “I can use the wind power, the turbines are supposed to be nuclear but they’ve been used with solar energy before; just need something to charge through. The wind speeds are absurdly high, you saw that. That’s all we need. That’ll generate more than enough power to charge the thrusters for a smaller ship.”

“Ren.” Hux squeezes the bridge of his nose again. “You’re going to make our ship into an  _ electrical sailboat?”  _

“Yes.”

His eyes are terrifyingly alight. Hux can see Kuru’s moon in them, the whole moon. They’re shining. His voice is so soft and so fast Hux has to lean in a little to hear him.

“If we ditch the cargo hold and hallways and solder the cockpit closed we’ll be small enough.” 

Hux collapses back into the pilot’s chair and reaches forward for more solvent. Ren raises his eyebrows. Hux shrugs.

“We’re not gonna start until tomorrow, right?”

Ren nods.

Hux passes him the bottle. 

** 

Hux doesn’t know how he got here. The bottle is empty. He’s slouched in the pilot’s chair with one foot on the console and the other in his hands, trying desperately to take off his boot. He can see his breath; it’s freezing. Ren’s running his hands through the air like a mad conductor.

“We shouldn’t have drink…drunk…dranken. That.” 

Ren shakes his head, then keeps shaking it slower, back and forth like he can’t stop.

“Noooope.” 

Hux’s voice is sticky and high when he says, “How do you know so much about ships?”

Ren looks at him, quiet. His hair is curled over his forehead and his cheeks are flushed, pink even in the silver sand-light. 

“My uncle taught me.”

Hux huffs. “Didn’t know you had an uncle.”

“Did.”

Hux’s head feels like it’s on a swivel when he turns to look at Ren’s absurdly put-together face.

“He was a big ship guy, was he?” There. All those syllables made it attached to the correct words. Hux smiles to himself.

“He wasn’t really a guy, he was more of a wookie.” 

Hux squints at Ren’s face in the dark. “You had a wookie for an uncle?”

Ren sucks the last of the solvent out of the bottle. “Yep.” 

Hux slouches, somehow, even more in his seat. “Hmph.”

“Yep.” 

They’re quiet for a long time. Hux thinks he’s looking at Kuru’s rather strikingly beautiful moon before he realizes it’s Ren’s eyes he’s looking at. His face feels hot. 

“So. The Sith.”

“Yep.”

“You’re…a Sith?”

“No.”

Hux knits his eyebrows together, trying to hang onto the thread of what’s becoming a complicated conversation.

“I… have knights. We aren’t… Sith. We’re…knights.” Ren snorts loudly. “We’re knights.” 

“You’re knights.”

“No, we’re  _ Knights _ .” 

“Knights of Ren.”

“Mm.”

“So, calling you Ren, then…”

“T’s like calling you…General, I suppose. Sort of.”

“So your name is…”

There’s a long, long moment of silence. Hux can see Ren’s breath lit up silver through his mouth.

“Kylo,” Ren says.

Somehow Hux can’t say it; using Ren’s name feels too personal. He avoids it. “And that’s all. No…last name, no nothing.”

“Just Kylo.”

“Hm.” 

“And you’re…just General.”

Hux sighs loudly. Something is different now. He thinks that if they replayed the accident again, Ren were to tell him to trust him  _ now _ , he’d do it much quicker. “Hux, I suppose, Ren.” 

Ren seems to have none of Hux’s own hang-ups regarding names and intimacy; he drops Hux’s name immediately into his lap soaked in mechanic’s booze, quiet and low.

“Hux.”

Hux is too drunk to shiver, but his toes still curl. Ren’s voice is so low, damn him. Ren turns away.

They sit in silence for a while longer, watching another moon rise over the dunes. Kuru’s almost brighter at night than it is during the day. The night is incredible – the first moon is bright and silver like a sun but the second hovers just on top of the horizon, stubborn and orange. It never rises any higher. Hux can see the craters in it. It’s enormous, he doesn’t understand how it’s so dim when it’s so big but it’s mesmerizing all the same. The pale orange of the second moon and the silver of the first are a spectacular light-show on the sand, sparkling off the surface like the planet’s made of water.  

“You’re quieter now than you were, before,” Ren slurs. His voice has taken on this slow, syrupy quality that blends all his words together. Hux thinks of molasses and dark, fragrant mud. He thinks of Arkanis. Ren’s voice sounds like the ground after a rainstorm.

“Before?”

“Yeah, when we…met. Before. On Coruscant.”

Hux turns his head too quickly in Ren’s direction and gets dizzy. Ren seems to be avoiding the phrase  _ when we were children _ . He continues in his warm, muddy voice.

“Your thoughts. They’re quieter now. You’re…guarding them. General.”

Hux nods distantly. He’s very dizzy. “Suppose so.”

“Without meaning to, then.”

“Yeah. Yes.”

Ren makes an impressed noise. Hux shrugs.

“Easier for you to ignore now, then?”

Ren hums. “If I want to, I can ignore them…easily enough.” His consonants are softer. Hux can’t place the accent he seems to be devolving into. Ren speaks again.

“I don’t always want to.” 

Another wave of the booze hits him and Hux pushes his hair out of his eyes. He looks at Ren then, really looks at him for the first time since he took off his stupid helmet. He still can’t bring himself to look at Ren’s mouth. It feels…obscene.

“My thoughts are mine, Ren.”

Ren nods, all his movements slowed down and spun out.

“If I want someone to know something, I say it.” Hux is speaking too deliberately in that way he does when he’s had too much to drink. Carefully over each syllable. “Otherwise,  _ stay out _ .”

The corner of Ren’s mouth quirks up. “Yes, General.”

More silence. Another wave of drunkenness. The temperature is still dropping. It’s a good thing they’ve had so much to drink, Hux thinks. He’d be freezing otherwise. His boot is halfway off from when he’d tried to remove it earlier. It hangs off his foot and he wiggles his toes inside the extra room.

“Sometimes I can’t help it, you know.”

“Can’t help … what.”

“Sometimes a thought is so loud it gets…like,” Ren makes a very clumsy pushing motion with one of his huge hands. “Pushed at me.”

“Bollocks.”

Ren shakes his head like he’s underwater. “t’s true.” He grabs at the empty bottle like he expects more booze to be in it. “Mostly it’s...like, not really thoughts that do that. Strong emotions and stuff. Impressions. Instincts, you know.” It seems impossible how easily Ren speaks, how normal he sounds. The Ren on his ship didn't speak like this. Hux figures it must be the alcohol. 

“Like what?”

“ _ Hux _ .”

Hux’s whole body flushes. Ren points at him and grins with one side of his face.

“Like that.” 

Hux turns away, embarrassed. He hopes desperately that neither of them will remember this in the morning. He shivers and shoves his foot back into his boot, wraps his coat around his shoulders. Ren’s still in a t-shirt, his robes in a pile under his head.

“You’re not…freezing?”

Ren shrugs. “Nah.”

There it is again, that careless, aimless, placeless accent.  _ What is that _ ?

Ren points at him drunkenly. “I can sense that you’re curious about something, see. But I dunno what.” He puts both hands behind his head and his breath comes out a visible ghost. “Works like that mostly.”

Hux blurts, “your voice,” before his brain catches up to him.

Ren raises an eyebrow, his whole face gone rubbery with intoxication.

“I’m. Curious. About. Your voice.” His words are coming out stilted and over pronounced, as if he’s trying to prove how sober he is. 

Ren doesn’t say anything, so Hux presses further. “Your accent. It’s weird.”

“Weird.”

“Yes, weird.”

Ren looks at the ceiling and mutters, “this whole fuckin’ day has been weird.” He hiccups, tries to hide it on a sniff. “General.”

“Is Basic not your language?” Hux finds himself asking before kicking himself. _He doesn’t care, he doesn’t care to know any of this about Ren, he isn’t –_ oh, fuck it. He’s drunk and he’s curious.

“Yeah, it’s my language.”

Hux nods, confused but not willing to push further. He halfheartedly reminds himself that he and Ren are not friends, and that he doesn’t care whether Basic is Ren’s first language or not. Ren could be a droid for all it should matter to Hux.

Problem is, there’s some sort of curiosity that’s always pulled at him about Ren. Annoyance, irritation, hatred. All there, always. Curiosity too. Too many things devoted to Ren, too many emotions being used up contemplating him. Hux is tired of ignoring them. He can’t hate the man as much as he does and still claim not to care. Feeling both at once is simply impossible.

Stars, he’s drunk.

Ren miraculously volunteers more information, his voice going lower and muddier as the unnamed accent picks up.

“Not my only language, though.” Hux turns to him, wraps his coat tighter around his shoulders and waits. Ren continues.

“I, uh. I speak a lot of languages, it turns out. Learned ‘em from…from someone. A while ago. Most of ‘em…aren’t very nice.”

“Pirate tongues.” That’s what Hux’s father called them.

Ren laughs, louder and more open than the humorless barks from earlier.

“Yeah, I guess. Smugglers talk pretty gross.”

“How many?”

“Hm?”

“How.” Hux hiccups. Embarrassing. “How many languages do you speak?”

Ren’s face screws up. “Eh, probably about 22, give or take.”

“Twenty- _ two? _ ”

Ren shrugs.

“Gods, Ren.” 

The corner of Ren’s mouth pulls up again, like he’s proud in spite of himself. “Sometimes it comes in handy if the Knights have a mission someplace…” He grins, something dark and irresistible creeping into his eyes and the curve of his mouth and Hux thinks the word  _ lecherous  _ before he can stop himself. “Unsavory.”

Somehow, Ren has managed to reveal more about himself than Hux ever wanted to know, yet has only made himself even more confusing. Everything about him contradicts. A horrible monster in an inhuman mask, who also happens to be the most striking looking human being Hux has perhaps ever seen. Who Hux has seen rip out a man’s mind with his hands, and who Hux has also seen put one painstakingly together again for no reason at all. A mindless, murdering Sith droid with an extensive knowledge of the inner workings of starships and filthy pirate languages. A hulking enigma. Hux curses him and moves to get up. 

“General Hux.”

Hux pauses in the doorway, leaning heavily against it. His hair is in his eyes and he makes no move to push it away. Ren throws something at him and Hux is too drunk to catch it. A heavy cloak hits him in the face. Hux grabs it in both hands and is about to open his mouth to protest, but Ren’s already turning away.

Hux takes the cloak. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo, ya'll are making me so fucking happy with your support, like literally every time a Kudos pops up I feel like my hands are gonna vibrate off. So, you know. Thoughts and stuff are more appreciated than I can say. 
> 
>  
> 
> PS: I just got my wisdom teeth out, so all the drunk conversations are... Vicodin fueled. (other things in the works a few chapters down the road were /also/ Vicodin fueled and they are so much dirtier than they otherwise would have been because of it.) So. Thanks, Vicodin!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuru is an uncooperative place.

He sleeps in the ship’s narrow hallway with the cloak wrapped around his shoulders, but he wakes up with his face buried in it. It smells odd. Like sweat and metal, but also somehow like standing in a very muddy field of grass. It’s… not unpleasant. Warm and close, dark like the kind of mud that breeds life. Again, unwittingly, Hux thinks of Arkanis, and kicks himself. He throws the cloak off him like it’s personally offended him.

On his way back to the cockpit he passes the hanger but decides to simply hope the troopers sleep until Hux and Ren are gone. He’d rather not command them to stay here and die; he’s not sure what he’d say. It’s been such a strange few days.

When he walks back into the cockpit, Kuru’s distant sun is just starting to rise, throwing everything brilliantly orange, and he squints around for Ren’s dark head. He finds two.

“Okay, put that  _ there _ . Yes, good. Don’t let go of that bolt.”

“Yes, Commander.”

“When I let go of this it’s gonna release a lot of pressure, so it’ll be hard to hang on to.”

“I- yes, Commander.”

“What?”

“What, what, sir?”

“You stopped yourself from saying something.”

Trig shakes her head. Ren’s holding something that looks like a giant transponder on the ceiling with one hand while Trig holds it with both of hers. Ren’s other hand is clamped over a hose. His helmet is still off.

“You were thinking some smart-ass comment, weren’t you?”

“Who, me, sir?”

Ren’s face cracks down the middle and he grins again. Hux shakes his head. Is he dreaming? Is he still drunk?

“I’d never make a smart ass comment at you, Commander.”

Ren’s body is sort of wrapped around Trig’s from the way they’re holding up the engine parts, and he turns toward her and actually  _ winks _ at her.

Someone makes a rather embarrassing spluttering noise.

“Good morning, General.”

Ah. It was him, then.

Trig’s head snaps around to look at Hux like she’s been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“G-General! Sir!”

Hux narrows his eyes. “TR-1040.” He looks back at Ren and raises an eyebrow. Ren shrugs and says, “She woke up. There’s room for her in here.”

“Room for me where, Commander?”

“That’s none of your concern, Trig,” Hux snaps. Over her head Ren rolls his eyes.

It strikes Hux that the longer Ren spends away from the Finalizer, the calmer he seems to be. His mannerisms are completely different; less like a caged tiger and more like a lazy housecat. His voice, his face, the set of his shoulders. Ren seems…relaxed. He answers questions, volunteers information. Apparently  _ winks _ at troopers.

Hux’s hands are balled into fists so tight they’re creaking in his gloves.

Ren’s looking back at Trig again. “Ready?”

She nods. Ren lets go of the tube and the transponder on the ceiling shudders. Trig’s still holding it with both hands when Ren lets go. It stays put.

“Very good, Trig.”

Trig actually blushes. “It’s really nothing, sir.”

This will not do  _ at all.  _ Hux is going to need to speak to Phasma about this. Perhaps the reconditioning program should be adjusted.

“General.” Ren’s voice is clearer than last night (which Hux, cruelly, remembers all of) but it still has a… familiar quality to it that unnerves him. He feels like everything is upside down. He needs to get back to his ship.

“What, Ren.”

“Are you just going to stand there or are you going to help?”

Hux grumbles and makes his way over to a mess of wires.

In the end, it takes 14 hours. 14 hours with Hux, Ren, Trig and a very confused Zero working nonstop. Not one single break. The four of them are welded into the cockpit (which seemed much bigger when there were only two people in it and  _ really _ , didn’t they agree to abandon the children?) and the outside of the ship is jerry-rigged in a very unprofessional but hopefully functional fashion. Somehow no one got pummeled into dust by a sandstorm during their work on the outside of the ship, but Hux’s face is burned from the scant 5 minutes he spent in the sun. The inside of the cockpit smells terrible. Just terrible. And Ren’s distractingly unclothed, again.

Hux just needs to get back on his ship and out of this fever dream.

Ren folds his bare feet under him and sits in a dark corner of the cockpit, under the copilot’s console (where he and Hux had their heartwarming conversation, Hux’s memory supplies helpfully). He closes his eyes.

“I need silence now.”

Two over-eager voices sound at once. “Yes, sir!”

Hux rolls his eyes and moves as far from Ren as possible. “Ren, what are you doing?”

Ren cracks one eye open but otherwise doesn’t move from his folded position on the floor.

“I’m about to move this entire cockpit, Hux. I’m meditating.” A stray thought pushes itself out of Hux without his consent: _ don’t call me that in front of them. _

“You mean the storm is about to move this entire—”

“General, shut up.”

And because that’s just the sort of week Hux is having, he shuts up.

He sits in the pilot’s chair, fixes his eyes on the dead planet outside and waits.

And waits. And waits.

Trig shifts once and then looks apologetically at Ren, whose eyes are still closed. After what Hux would guess is about another hour, his breathing slows down dramatically, almost like he’s asleep. Something changes in the air. It’s that same  _ thing _ that usually accompanies Ren’s presence, but magnified. Considerably. Hux shifts, suddenly inexplicably uncomfortable. The troopers don’t seem to notice; Zero’s staring vacantly ahead and Trig appears to be asleep. Her head droops to one side.

Hux stops staring at the sand and looks at Ren’s face.

He looks uncharacteristically calm and still. He hardly looks like he’s breathing; his shoulders are stone. His eyes aren’t even moving under his eyelids.  _ His eyelashes are so dark _ .

Hux can feel him, somehow. He can feel him like this. His … Ren-ness is expanding like a balloon, slow and cool into the cockpit, enveloping the whole ship. It seeps into Hux’s skin and he can feel it on the back of his neck like fingers. He has the ridiculous urge to shiver, to run his hands over his neck and get Ren off him. He waits.

It gets worse.

How can the troopers not feel this? Everything is tingling, and Hux swears he can feel the hum of the planet under his feet, a pulse like a heartbeat, and the distinct impression of three human beings around him. He is certain that if he closed his eyes, he would still be able to tell they were there. Ren is like a bright light in his mind, exuding something dark and brilliant at the same time. Hux can feel him everywhere. He’s drowning in him.  

Ren’s eyes drift open but he doesn’t seem to be looking at anything; they slide shut again after a few minutes. His breathing is still unnaturally slow.

Out the window, there is a solid wall of brilliant gold and orange headed for them.

_ Here we go _ .

It hits them fast, even with them expecting it. Trig’s eyes fly open and Zero grabs his belt where he’s buckled in. No one speaks. The troopers look at Hux, and Hux nods grimly to them. They wait. The sand pummels the hull of the ship, but so far no rocks.

There is a long, sputtering moment of groaning engine noises before the ship’s lights kick on. Hux’s eyes slide closed in relief.

The two remaining thrusters kick on simultaneously, and the ship lurches. Hux grabs the helm and pulls up.

They move. It’s not terrible going, at first, though piloting such a small craft in such high wind isn’t exactly the easiest thing Hux has ever done. But as the ship rises, the storm worsens.

The first rock is small, hits the windshield and doesn’t crack it but rocks the ship. Ren’s still sitting on the floor, cross-legged. He hasn’t moved. They didn’t discuss this; Hux has no idea what’s supposed to happen now. Isn’t Ren meant to snap out of it and do something? Guide the ship out of this utter disaster? Does Hux need to… wake him up, somehow?

The back of Hux’s neck is sticky with sweat. The second impact nearly flips them over completely. If Hux weren't strapped to his seat he’d be on the ceiling. Ren miraculously doesn’t move from his place on the floor, despite being completely untethered. His face still looks abnormally calm. Hux grips the helm with white knuckles and pulls up again, hoping desperately that he isn’t guiding them back to the surface of the planet. It’s impossible to see.

The third impact is enormous; it hits the hull of the ship where it’s thinnest, right behind the troopers, and Hux can feel it all the way from where he’s sitting in the pilot seat, so he knows it's bad for Zero. Zero wheezes, coughs up blood with wide eyes. His head makes a resounding  _ thump _ against the wall with the next impact, his expression blanking out. Trig looks at him frantically, but still remains silent. Her breathing is so loud Hux can hear it even over the storm.

“Ren.”

The ship lurches to the right and stays there, off-kilter. Another impact and it flips completely – they could be upside down, but it’s nearly impossible to tell. Hux grits his teeth.

“Ren, any time.”

Still, Ren says nothing. He’s so deep in his meditative state that he seems completely unaware of what’s happening. Hux can still feel Ren’s magnified presence around him like a terrible, oppressive coat. Like hands. He can smell Ren on him. 

“ _ Any time _ , I said _.”  _

Another impact. Trig starts to cry, and Zero coughs blood onto the floor. Hit damaged his lungs, then. His eyes are drifting, far away like a dangerous concussion. They’re going to die and still, Ren says nothing. He’s lost.

A rock half the size of their ship collides with the window and Hux watches it form a crack like a spider web.

“Kylo!”

Ren’s eyes open. He stands and his hand is on Hux’s shoulder before Hux can even process that he’s moved.

The world straightens out again, and Hux knows which way to steer the ship. The storm is louder this time, screaming through the thinner hull. Hux has to yell over it.

“Took you long enough!”

Ren doesn’t respond but his hand squeezes Hux’s shoulder once. His other hand somehow manages to stop the ship from being pummeled. Three more rocks zip away from the ship, propelled by a force far stronger than Kuru’s impossible winds. Hux can feel Ren’s power through his grip on his shoulder. It makes him feel like a grounding rod. 

More rocks, more narrowly missed impact. Hux flips some levers frantically and guides the ship in what he hopes is the right direction. They’re going faster than he expected them to. Hux’s hair is soaked through with sweat, hanging into his eyes. His shoulder is bruising where Ren’s holding it. Zero is hanging dangerously in his seat, and Trig seems to have passed out from either fear or G-force.

“ _ Stop.” _

Hux does a double take over his shoulder. There’s something … off about Ren’s voice.

“Stop? What the fuck do you mean, stop?”

Ren’s grip on his shoulder goes from strong to utterly crushing. Hux winces.

“ _ Stop steering the ship.”  _ His voice is like 2 or 3 voices at once, all somehow layered and then filtered back out through Ren’s body. There’s something like electricity in it. “ _ Leave it.”  _ It’s eerily calm, horribly dark. Like something other than Ren is talking.

“ _Trust me, General.”_ Part of Ren’s voice, the one that’s _his,_ the one that sounds like muddy grass and leaked emotion, makes its way back into his words. Hux lets go.

The ship gives one terrifying heave and then keeps going, steering itself, straighter and steadier than before. Ren’s grip on Hux’s shoulder is so tight it’s painful, truly painful, and Hux has no idea what’s going to happen. 

They move. It’s almost silent. Nothing touches them, nothing even approaches them. The sand even looks like it’s parting for them. Hux’s whole body is buzzing, somehow full of Ren’s energy.

The ship exits the atmosphere and the thrusters die, first one and then the second. Hux checks to make sure the rest of the ship is still functioning (it is) and then checks to make sure they’re headed in the correct direction to be intercepted by the Finalizer (they are).

Ren’s still bruising Hux’s shoulder, one hand still stretched out. Hux turns around to look at his face and he flinches.

Ren’s face is completely white, like a corpse. He’s covered in sweat, his dark hair stuck to his face like a frame. Even his freckles look paler. His eyes are huge, darker than space, fever-bright with a broken blood vessel in one of them. His expression is far-off, confused, almost afraid.

Hux feels something pull in his chest.

“Ren, it’s fine, it’s fine. You did fine.”

Ren’s panicked eyes find Hux’s, frantically looking at his face.

“You can let go now, Ren.”

“H-Hux—”

Ren looks like he’s going to be sick. Hux starts sliding out of the pilot’s chair.

“You’re fine.”

Ren’s eyes close and he passes out. Hux barely catches him.

 

A few hours later, Hux looks at Ren where he’s propped up against the console, holding his helmet in his hands and looking slightly less like a walking corpse.

“Ren.”

“Mm.”

“You…did well.”

Ren looks up at him, something vulnerable in his face. He’s thinking about Hux catching him, somehow Hux knows that and he notices the dark of his eyes again, like the beautiful void of space and  _ again _ Hux thinks about the smell of the wet woods of Arkanis, of being a child hunting with his father –

Ren’s eyes are so open and so huge and there’s a horrible, malignant  _ trust  _ in them that turns Hux’s stomach, that makes him regret everything that he’s said and done in Ren’s presence the past 3 days so fiercely he feels dizzy.

Something in his chest wavers and turns solid, like coagulating blood. His voice is hard enough to cut steel when he next speaks.

“You will never, under any circumstances, show weakness like this in my presence again. Do I make myself clear?” 

Ren blinks very slowly, almost surprised. “I...yes, General.” 

“Put your helmet back on.”

“Yes, General.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE GIVE ME KUDOS THEY ARE MY LIFE BLOOD  
> i never knew ... i never knew how wonderful they were. 
> 
> you know who's not wonderful? Hux. Hux is Not Nice.   
> ps.....Hux.....might be a little force sensitive i'm gonna tag it just in case.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux suffers another revelation, and it is - upsetting.

 

Getting back to the Finalizer is easy, if a little surreal. Docking like a piece of space trash is easy, if a little off-putting. Physically getting off the ship, however…

Hux hasn’t shaved, showered, or changed his clothes in almost 4 horrible days. There’s orange fuzz on his jaw he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager and he’s pretty sure he smells like an alcoholic mechanic. He wants cool water, desperately. They'd been drinking water that was practically boiling for days. His shoulder throbs from Ren’s hand - he can feel each finger like it's still on him.

They have to be cut out of the ship. It makes sense, seeing as how they welded themselves in, but it’s all so _loud._

Ren’s sitting in the corner, robes and helmet back on, waiting like some sort of coiled animal as if he hadn’t been knocked unconscious by the force of his own power a few hours ago. As if he hadn’t collapsed into Hux’s arms like a ragdoll. He can’t tell if he’s looking at him or not, but he doesn’t move. Hux has no idea if either trooper is alive; neither has moved since they exited Kuru’s atmosphere.

Hux has a mind-numbing headache and he still wants a drink.

When the hull of the ship is peeled off, Phasma is waiting for him. He leaves Ren and the troopers in the ship without a glance in their direction (- _they can no doubt take it from here themselves_ -), striding off as if he isn’t covered in grease and sweat and dirt, as if his shirt isn’t ripped and his face sunburnt and unshaven. To Phasma’s credit, she seems to take it all in stride, walking with him through the hanger to brief him on what he missed without the slightest whiff of a comment on the situation. She leads him rather kindly through the less populated hallways of the ship, and Hux’s chest squeezes at the Finalizer’s clean lines and soft electric humming. He’s walking towards his quarters without entirely realizing it. Halfway through her report Hux stops in the hall, wearily holding up a grease-stained hand.

“Captain.”

Phasma turns.

“Can this wait?”

Phasma inclines her head in Hux’s direction. “Yes, General. Of course.”

He nods curtly, not trusting himself to say anything else, and she disappears down a hallway.

He’s so tired by the time he finds his quarters that he has to actually put his hand on the door to remain upright. He collapses onto his bed in all his clothes, boots still on his feet, desperate to be clean but physically unable to make it to the refresher.

He falls into blissful unconsciousness.

 

The next cycle is mercifully slow to come. Hux takes a shower, an actual shower, one perk of his officer’s quarters that he almost never uses, and stands there for almost an hour. He watches the grease from the ship’s engine run out of his hair and over his feet, and thinks of the grease on Ren’s huge ungloved hands. Thinks of the smudge of grime over Ren’s cheekbone, when he’d been squinting at Kuru’s unusually distant sun. Thinks hatefully of how the sun had turned Ren’s eyes gold in places, like cracks of amber through a black mirror, and shivers with loathing. How _dare_ Ren have eyes like that. He watches the grease from the ship’s engine run over his body and disappear down the drain, and some vague, metaphorical half-formed thought flickers in his chest. Hux dismisses it. He turns off the water and gets dressed.

The Finalizer seems more or less to have operated smoothly in his absence. The bridge is humming with its usual activity, engineers and control operations milling about, talking in low voices. No one looks twice at him as he strides onto the bridge for the mid-morning report. It’s as if he never left. He breathes in the cool, filtered air and relaxes just the tiniest bit.

The mess hall is louder than usual, he notices. He almost skips it, almost takes his lunch in his quarters to avoid the gossip he _knows_ is floating around the tables, but decides against it. Something as trivial as gossip is certainly not going to mar his routine. He takes a seat across from Phasma at the officer’s table. She says nothing to him, doesn’t even acknowledge that he’s sat down, and it’s unlike her.

“Captain, what—”

“Sh.”

Hux’s eyebrows climb all the way into his hair. Phasma’s helmet turns her theatrical whisper into more of a controlled scream.

“I’m _listening_.”

“Eavesdropping again, Captain?”

Phasma nods, unabashed. After a second, she takes off her helmet (to hear better, Hux assumes) and leans forward.

“It’s one of my favorite pastimes, General. I don’t get out much, you know.” She winks.

Hux rolls his eyes. Phasma raises her eyebrows and jerks her head to the right, indicating the table behind her. Against his better judgment Hux listens. He’s in a good mood today, after all.

“They’re not sure if he’s gonna wake up.”

“I didn’t like him much, anyway.”

“Ouch, Zip.”

“Whatever, he was a terrible shot. Plus, he was pretty dumb, you know?”

Hux looks at Phasma and she mouths, “Zero” over her plate of food. Hux winces. Phasma shrugs.

“How’s Trig doing?” asks one of troopers at the table.

“She’s in med bay. She’ll be fine, I think.”

“Did you _talk_ to her, though?”

“No, why?”

One of the troopers leans forward, shifting closer to the group. Their voice comes through their helmet at the same volume as before, but it sounds conspiratorial. Eager.

“I did.”

The table of troopers take a collective breath. So does Phasma, a look of exaggerated excitement on her face. She widens her eyes at Hux like they’re playing a game. Hux leans toward the table ever so slightly.

“She saw Kylo Ren’s face. Like, for real.”

There’s a series of amused, disbelieving sounds.

“No, really! I mean, she’s pretty badly concussed. But…”

“Zip, out with it!”

“She said he’s human.”

Phasma widens her eyes in genuine surprise. Hux feels like a stone has settled in his stomach for reasons he doesn't understand. His shoulder tingles.

“ _And_ she said, and I quote, ‘he’s amazing’.”

Someone makes a sound that resembles a raspberry.

“What a load of bantha shit.”

“I don’t know, guys. She seemed, like, _really_ sincere.”

“Yeah, actually I heard her when they carried her to med bay, she kept saying “so beautiful” over and over again.”

One of the other troopers shakes their head.

“Nah, she was talking about the General.”

Phasma snorts and then covers it with a cough. Hux stares resolutely at a piece of bread across the table. He refuses to meet her eyes.

One of the other troopers snorts and waves his hand. “Oh, like that’s news.”

“Yeah, if Trig thinks she’s the only one who noticed _that_ —”

“Did you _see_ him when they came in? His hair was all messed up—”

“—he had, like, _facial hair_ , Zip—”

Hux is staring off into space with wide, unseeing eyes. Phasma is laughing, full-on silent laughing, her huge silver shoulders shaking while she tries to breathe.

He suddenly looks at Phasma, anger pulling his eyebrows together.

“What happened to your conditioning program, _Captain_? Isn’t it supposed to discourage…thoughts like this? Discussion like this? Hm?” His expression is vicious. “Shouldn’t you be embarrassed right now?”

Phasma wipes a tear out of one eye and looks at Hux, still smiling.

“Oh, General,” she says. “They’re human beings, not droids. Not clones. All the conditioning in the world can’t take that out of them. My program works fine and you know it. You’re just upset. Don't be so delicate. After all,” she leans so far across the table he can feel her breath on his face, “you’re such a _pretty General_.”

Hux slams his hands on the table and stalks away, ignoring Phasma cackling behind him. She’s laughing so hard half the mess hall is looking. He can still hear her peals of laughter following him back to his quarters. He buries himself in paperwork for the rest of the night and doesn’t even notice when he falls asleep.

_He’s ten, and he’s standing in the middle of the forest on Arkanis. His feet are bare, sinking disgustingly into the mud. He watches it swallow up all ten of his toes, impossibly dark against his skin. It’s raining. The rain is warm, like bathwater, and so is the mud. It’s odd, Tig thinks distantly. The thought is sluggish and difficult to grasp, like it doesn’t want to be found. Arkanis is freezing. The rain is always cold. But this rain is wonderful: warm and soft on his face, his eyelids, the backs of his hands. Tig sighs, looks up at the sky and sees nothing but the beautiful black void of space. He looks back down – his toes are still sinking into the warm mud, but something’s … He’s not on Arkanis, he’s on the Finalizer. He’s. He’s on the Finalizer and he’s not Tig, he's a man he’s General Hux and it’s still raining, and something has changed. There's something hot and electric in the air, under his skin, in the mud, the rain. It’s raining warm bathwater, and his feet are still bare, still stuck in the mud, and he’s standing in front of the Finalizer’s viewport and he’s looking down at a beautiful orange marble and it’s Kuru, it’s Kuru and he’s sinking into the mud but it’s fine, it’s so warm just like the rain, and it feels so good, so good it feels so good and Hux sighs but he can’t hear it over the downpour, soaking his uniform, so warm and close on his skin, bouncing off the control panel, pounding at the windows. It’s going to flood. Hux opens his mouth to taste the rain._

Hux shoots up in bed, panting and sweating and shockingly, inexplicably hard.

“Lights, 10 percent,” he croaks, hating the way his voice sounds. The lights creep up gently. It’s the middle of the sleep cycle. He looks down at his hands. They’re shaking. His sheets are stuck to his body, twisted up and covered in sweat and he’s – gods. He can still smell the mud, can still feel it under his feet, can still taste the rain on his tongue and it had tasted _so good—_

Hux gets in the shower and blasts it freezing, pelts his stubborn body with frigid water until his skin is red and his _cock_ is back under control, _fuck –_ he feels dangerously out of control of his own body and he doesn’t think about how long it takes, he doesn’t think about why this is happening, he just focuses on scrubbing his skin until it hurts.

He’s still shaking when he steps out, though he can tell himself now that it's from the cold. His skin in the mirror is a brilliant patchwork: ghost pale and bright red in parts, with five huge purple fingers splayed over his shoulder, brushing his collarbone. The placement is almost tender, and Hux’s stomach gives a vicious lurch. Ren’s handprint suddenly feels stifling, unignorable, _possessive_ and he wants it off his body so badly he thinks he might be sick.

He falls asleep for the second time on top of his bare mattress, shivering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in an effort to be a complete asshole and procrastinate the shit out of my actual Nanowrimo novel, i finished this story. there are 8 chapters and an epilogue. what the fuck. anyway, since it's done i'll probably post it fairly fast. 
> 
> knowing people are enjoying this is my life blood please feed me


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux's dreams get worse; Phasma and Hux have a gratuitous drunk conversation.

Hux can’t shake the dream. He has it three more times over the next three days, always the same. He always wakes at the same point in the dream and he always wakes … confused. Warm, covered in sweat, a little sad and so hard he’s breathless with it. It takes hours to fall back asleep each time, and each time Hux can’t seem to pin down what it is that unsettles him about the dream. He goes through his shift by the fourth day in a terrible, exhausted daze, distracted to the point of vacancy.

Lieutenant Mitaka hands Hux a data pad to sign off on and Hux stares at it for so long Mitaka’s nervous face pulls together.

“Sir?”

Hux looks up. “What is it?”

Mitaka looks embarrassed. “Your…your signature, please, sir. The briefing report from this morning’s meeting? You were about to sign off on it?”

“Yes, of course I was about to sign off on it, Lieutenant,” he snaps. “Feeling like an impatient weasel today?” Mitaka pales. Hux doesn’t generally resort to actual insults; his tone usually does the trick just fine.

Hux signs the data pad and hands it back to Mitaka with a bit of extra force.

“Go on, then,” he says waspishly. Mitaka practically sprints in the other direction.

By the end of his shift Hux is leaning much closer to furious than distracted. This is ridiculous. The dreams should not be this distracting. They’re not even frightening. They’re… well, he doesn’t know what they are but they certainly aren’t worth his time.

He resolves to go to bed very early, and goes about his evening routine with a certain amount of brutality. He brushes his teeth aggressively, _angrily_ , till his gums bleed, he scrubs his skin in the ‘fresher so hard it turns bright pink, he barks, “lights, 0%” as if they’ve committed some sort of crime. He closes his eyes and doesn’t move until he falls asleep, refuses to toss and turn like some sort of common insomniac.

He has the dream again.

_This time, when Hux opens his mouth to taste the rainstorm pounding at the inside of the Finalizer, he doesn’t wake. The water is impossibly warm on his skin and it fills his mouth and pours out over his lips, runs down his neck and pools at the hollow of his throat where his head’s tilted up, leaks out of his mouth and under his uniform, feels obscenely slow when it rolls over his collarbones, stopping in the dips there and then tracking over his chest. He closes his mouth and swallows and he can feel the rain in his stomach, warm and heavy and comforting, and the mud isn’t just under his feet it’s everywhere, it’s the whole floor of the Finalizer like he’s standing in a jungle, the wonderful dark smell of it so strong he feels like he might choke on it, and it smells like the sort of soil he used to bury his hands in, it smells like the rush of blood before a fight and the close pressing air of a summer thunderstorm and he bends down and sinks his hands into it. It’s swallowing him._

Hux is already gasping when he wakes, sitting up in bed with the sheets sticking to his chest. He’s covered in sweat and come.

“Oh, for the love of—”

He flops back down onto the bed and pushes his hands so hard over his eyes he sees stars. He wants to scream. He supposes he could, but somehow it feels like conceding defeat to the dream, so he just scrubs his hand over his face over and over again, refusing to acknowledge the rest of his … situation.  He sits in silence - in his own _come_ ,  _kriff_ -  for a few minutes, utterly confused, before getting up and stripping the sheets off the bed. This is the fourth time in four days he’s changed them. He showers again with his mind a careful blank, gets out and looks at the clock.

He’d only been asleep for 20 minutes. It’s still nearly 10 hours till his next shift starts.

Hux dresses in a soft black shirt and pants (-he does _not_ want to think about that rain under his uniform right now-) and leaves his quarters for the Officer’s Lounge. He desperately needs a drink.

 

The Officer’s Lounge is empty when Hux walks in. He grabs an entire bottle of Corellian brandy, leaves the glass, and drops himself into a huge leather armchair next to the window.

He gets about 15 minutes of time to himself before a very, very tall blonde nuisance sits down in the armchair next to him, sighs loudly, and puts two glasses on the table.

“Straight from the bottle?”

Hux grunts, staring out the window into space.

Phasma looks Hux up and down.

“General…did you wear your _pajamas_ to this bar?”

Hux grunts again. Phasma whistles.

“I’ve gotta hear this story.”

Hux’s eyes never move from the stars. “You will most certainly not be hearing it.”  He takes a gulp from the bottle. “And these are not pajamas.”

“They are on you. I’ve literally only ever seen you out of uniform in the training rooms.”

Hux drinks silently. He and Phasma are the only two people in here and there’s some sort of soft, tinkling background bar music playing through the ceiling. Phasma seems to pick up on Hux’s mood and sits in amiable silence with him, waiting until he’s feeling relaxed enough to talk to her. He’s gone through a quarter of the brandy before he realizes it.

Hux respects Phasma. She is efficient, brutal, and a competent captain. An excellent symbol and example to the rest of the troopers. Truly terrifying in close combat. And frighteningly perceptive. Despite her tendency to offer unwanted advice and laugh at him when he’s embarrassed, Hux does grudgingly consider Phasma as something closer to a friend than anyone else he knows. So after another quarter of the brandy bottle, he fills their glasses and passes one to her. She takes it with a small smile.

Hux sighs, huge and exaggerated. Phasma waits patiently, to Hux’s mild surprise.

“I can’t…sleep.”

Phasma sips her brandy delicately and raises her eyebrows, but says nothing. Hux huffs.

“I…” he closes his eyes again, utterly exhausted. One of his hands scrubs over his face and scratches into his hair, pulling it down into his eyes. His cheek is resting on the glass of brandy. “I’m having these, um. Dreams.”

Phasma raises her eyebrows again and leans her head forward as if to say _yeah, and?_

He can’t. He can’t do this. He isn’t drunk enough. “Phasma, I’m not drunk enough for this.”

At the use of her name, Phasma’s eyebrows climb all the way underneath her blonde hair. She takes out a data pad and taps it a few times, still saying nothing. Hux watches her in silence. After she’s done, she gets up, walks behind the bar, grabs another bottle of the same brandy (Hux’s favorite), and puts it on the table between them.

Hux looks at the bottle and then looks up at her impassive expression. “You know I have to be on duty in 8 hours, right?” He nods at the half-empty bottle. “At this rate even if I just finish _this_ one I’ll probably still be drunk on the bridge.”

Phasma smiles and says, “well, it’s a very good thing someone has covered your bridge and command shifts for the next 36 hours, then.”

“What?”

She nods. “Welcome to your weekend, General.” She winks. “I even got Mitaka to do your paperwork for you.”

Hux’s mouth is hanging open. “How?”

“He’s very frightened of me.”

“I… didn’t ask you to do that for me, Captain.”

“Gee, General, stop being so affectionate and grateful. It’s making me blush.”

The corners of Hux’s mouth pull up a little. He takes a very large gulp of brandy.

“Thank you, Phasma.”

Phasma grins like a shark and clinks their glasses together. “So,” she says with a maniacal gleam in her eyes, “now you can get completely toasted and tell me what the fuck’s been up with you.”

“ _Toasted?”_

Phasma shrugs. “I might have had one or two drinks before coming in here.”

Hux snorts into his glass and they drink the rest of the bottle.

By the time the second bottle is about a quarter of the way gone, the Officer’s Lounge is much louder and more crowded. Hux and Phasma get a wide berth from the crowd, but the sound of all that milling chatter still makes Hux’s head buzz. He slams his empty glass on the table (again) and pours himself another (again).

“Phas,” he says very deliberately, “this brandy. Is. Excellent.”

“Mm.”

“It is. Much better than that disgusting filth that Ren made me drink.”

Phasma spits brandy onto the window.

“ _What_?”

Hux waves his hand through the air. “Ren. He’s. He made me drink with him.” He looks up at the ceiling. “We were going to die. It. Seemed important. At the time.”  It is unimportant _now,_ what's important now is that Phasma understand how much Hux hates Ren and his huge hands and his overwhelming strength and his 40 kilo alternators.

“He’s a mechanic. Or something.” His face scrunches up. “He’s terrible. But. He might be a good mechanic. He _drinks_ like a mechanic.”

Phasma’s mouth is hanging open.

“I mean. He. He doesn’t. He doesn’t look like a mechanic.”

She puts both her hands over her mouth, including the one holding the glass of brandy. Some of it splashes onto her face but she doesn’t notice. Her eyes are wide when she whispers through her fingers, “what…does he look like?”

Hux’s eyelids droop and he almost drops his glass. He’s so tired. “Phas. I’m so tired.”

“ _What does he look like, Hux?”_ Phasma still hasn’t taken her hands away from her mouth.

Hux snorts so loudly that a few people turn around to look in their direction. He waves them away without turning.

“He’s, uh. Well, he’s. Not terribly disfigured.”

“Hux, your face is red.”

“Yeah, well. I’m a little. Inebriated, Phas. That tends to happen.”

Phasma shakes her head so hard her hair gets stuck in the brandy on her face.

“Nope. This is like, _red face_ red face.”

“I don’t want to talk about this any more, Phas. He’s got all his facial. Parts. Okay? He’s got a face. It’s all there and. Accounted for.” Hux clears his throat. “There’s no reason for him to wear that stupid mela- mel- medra. Me. Lo. Melodramatic. Helmet at all. Except to give himself a scarier voice.”

Phasma’s eyes are so huge Hux is afraid they might fall out. He puts a hand out towards her face to push them back in. She reels backwards.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m. Pushing your eyes back in for you.”

She bats his hand away with an offended expression. “Keep your hands over there, General.” Hux puts his hand in his lap and looks down at it.

“You're really not going to tell me any more about what Commander Ren looks like, are you?”

“He’s got a face, Phasma. What do you want from me.”

She points a finger at him. “I am returning to this some day, Hux.”

Hux throws up his hands. “I'm. On the edge of my seat.”

She waves him off. “So, this dream.”

“Ah. Yes.”

“You’re sufficiently drunk enough to tell me about it now?”

“Mud.”

Phasma looks more confused than she has all night. “Mud?”

Hux nods. “Mud.”

Phasma looks around without moving her head, a wide smile on her face. “Ooooookay?”

Hux bravely tries to drink and speak at the same time and ends up snorting into the glass and then coughing all over Phasma. She pats his back and mutters, “happy weekend.”

“It’s just. Phas. It’s. It smells good. Okay? The mud. It smells good.”

“You’re…dreaming about mud and it smells good. And that’s why you’re so exhausted you can hardly stand.”

“Yes.”

She nods in slow motion. “Okay. I…accept this.”

Hux is shaking his head over and over, though he’s not entirely sure if the movement is on the outside or inside of his head. “No no no no no. It’s. The color, it’s so dark and it’s. Pretty. I feel. Good. Safe but, like, really good. Warm. It’s so dark and pretty, and. Phas no, see. No, it smells like –”

He pauses. It’s been in the back of his mind, lurking there like a storm cloud, bothering him for days, and all it took for him to admit it was an entire bottle of ridiculously expensive Corellian brandy:

“It smells like Ren.”

Hux widens his eyes and puts his hand over his mouth. Says, “fuck,” through his fingers.  

Phasma looks like Hux imagines someone would look after being mildly electrocuted. She blinks very slowly, looks down at the brandy in her hand, then at the brandy in Hux’s hand, then at the stars through the window.

“It smells. Like.” Her voice wavers like she's trying as hard as she can not to laugh. The corner her mouth twitches and she clears her throat.

“Glossing over how you know what he _smells_ like, Hux-”

“Not. Not like _that_ , Phas, fuck.” Hux’s whole face is hot. “Fuck.”

“Like I said, General. I’m coming back to this one day. And you're going to explain yourself. I read your Kuru mission report and you _left out some things_.”

Hux opens his mouth to respond, then thinks better of it. Phasma marches on.

“You’re dreaming about Kylo Ren.”

“Don’t be _ridiculous_ , Phasma.”

Hux nods to himself for a second and takes another sip from his glass. “I’m dreaming about mud.” He hiccups. “His voice sounds like it.”

Phasma is shaking her head with a wry smile on her face. “This is why you’re so good at those propaganda speeches, General.” She winks. “You’ve got the soul of a poet.”

“Piss. Off.”  

Somehow telling Phasma this has made him feel infinitely better and worse at the same time. It’s going to be much more difficult to pretend he’s confused after admitting Ren reminds him of. The Mud.

Hux rises unsteadily from his (increasingly comfortable) leather armchair and announces loudly, “I am going to go piss. And I am going to go to sleep.”

Phasma laughs and grabs the rest of the bottle of brandy, mostly empty. “Lightweight! What will I do without you, General?”

“You’ll find a nice girl to keep you company, I imagine.”

“Nice?” Phasma grins. “I hope not.”

“Goodnight, Captain.”

“Goodnight, General.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy national red head day y'all
> 
> because when someone asks you what the most beautiful man you've ever seen looks like, of course you respond with "he's got a face idk"


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux really shouldn't allow himself to be goaded like this.   
> (or, the one where they fight)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the truly perfect angel @El_Bell gifted me this fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8488135 based in this storyline because she lives to make me cry tears of gratitude. go read her amazing gift.

Hux isn’t sure how he navigates the hallways back to his quarters, especially when they keep  _ moving _ like that, but he ends up in front of his door with relatively little trouble.

The trouble comes in opening the door.

He just needs…to put his hand…on the scanner. On. Right there. Nope. That’s the wall. The scanner seems to be moving on him as well. The whole damn Finalizer is conspiring against him.

Hux tries for what feels like hours (and only ends up being about three minutes) before giving up and sitting down in the closed doorway with his back against the frame. This is the officer’s hall, and it’s the middle of the sleep cycle, and he’s fairly certain no one will bother him. He closes his eyes, just for a moment.

“General.”

When he opens his eyes again Phasma is towering over him with a look of supreme amusement on her face and a very pretty girl hanging off her arm. The clothes the girl is wearing suggest she’s an Engineering Tech, and Hux supposes he’s grateful Phasma isn’t sleeping with her troopers. Her voice is lower than Hux would have expected.

“Phasma, shouldn’t we help him?”

“Hush, you. You aren’t even supposed to be here.” Phasma taps the girl’s nose and then crouches down on the floor next to Hux. She looks like she’s trying very hard not to laugh in his face.

“Can’t get in?”

Hux blearily shakes his head and Phasma helps him up. He’s so dizzy. He almost says as much, but then he remembers the girl and valiantly shuts his mouth. Being this drunk isn’t very General-like.

She helps Hux get the door open and before he stumbles in, he turns to her with a pinched look on his face. His eyes flicker toward the girl and he frowns. Phasma grins.

“Don’t worry General she won’t say a word.” She leans in closer, “when I’m done with her she won’t remember her own name, let alone this interaction.” She winks and claps him once on the shoulder, then turns to go.

“Oh, and General?”

“Hm?”

Phasma fixes him with a look he doesn’t like. “The Knights are back from their mission today.”

Hux blinks very slowly. He does his best to appear sober when he says, “I. Wasn’t aware they were  _ on  _ a mission.”

Phasma nods. “Oh yes. It was all very covert and mystical. They left about four days ago, I think. Didn’t you think it odd we had no reports of Ren destroying the ship?”

“Well, yes.”

“He wasn’t on the ship, General.”

_ Four days _ .

“Thank you, Captain.”

Phasma rolls her eyes good naturedly and disappears down the hall.

Four days. Hux has been dreaming that stupid dream every day Ren’s been gone. He refuses to consider this new development and instead disappears under the covers and passes out.

He doesn’t dream.

 

Hux spends much of the next morning sleeping off what he refuses to acknowledge as a hangover. He silently thanks Phasma for covering his shifts ( _ and  _ for sending him a rather obnoxiously worded message about it in the morning in case he didn’t remember) and gets up 3 hours later than usual, showering and spending the rest of the morning catching up on paperwork over tea.

It’s all very relaxing until, of course, it’s not.

He can’t stop thinking about Ren. About how Ren’s on the ship, and he must be imagining the smell of mud and that terrible crackle of electricity in the air that always accompanies Ren. He can’t shake it, this feeling that Ren’s  _ there _ , that his horrible hulking presence is in the room with him, and it makes him jittery in a way he hasn’t been in years.

He decides, insanely, to go to the training rooms so he can hit something.

He almost never goes to the training rooms – the officers have their own and it’s usually empty, which Hux greatly prefers, but there aren’t any sparring droids there and Hux has the vicious urge to tear something apart.

He’s aware as he rounds the corner to the training rooms that this might be an excellent opportunity to remind his troopers who, exactly, he is. Back in his Special Operations days, his soldiers had known exactly what sort of man he was – exactly what he was capable of. No one questioned his calls because they knew what he could do as a sniper, and because they respected him as a Captain. Hux was of the opinion that a military leader incapable of combat was a poor excuse for a leader indeed, and though the troops on the Finalizer  _ know _ Hux’s history, no one has yet seen Hux outside his position barking orders on the bridge. There’s a difference between knowing something and witnessing it yourself, after all.

A small smile tugs at his mouth as the doors open –

And it falls  _ immediately  _ when he sees a pair of huge shoulders pounding one of the heavy bags into dust.

Of course. Of course Ren is here.

No one seems particularly afraid of him; there are a few troopers standing closer to Ren than Hux has ever seen anyone besides himself stand, and it strikes him that no one actually knows who Ren is. He’s dressed in the troopers’ training sweats and no one besides Hux (-and Trig, who Hux spots in a corner trying very hard not to look in Hux’s or Ren’s directions) has ever seen Ren’s naked face. As far as everyone in the training rooms is concerned, Ren’s just a really big soldier.

Hux can’t help it, he’s radiating loathing and frustration because Ren ruins  _ everything.  _ He clenches his fist and glares a hole into Ren’s back and Ren turns almost immediately to meet his eyes.

Hux is suffocating. He can smell grass and warm, pelting rain and that infernal mud like he’s drowning in it,  _ fuck _ it feels good even now, he can’t stand how warm it is, sitting hotter than anger in his chest, he can physically feel it creeping up under his feet around his ankles –

Ren’s walking toward him.

“General.”

Hux blinks, disoriented. Ren’s face looks … off. The bubble of his energy feels darker than usual, angry. Before he can stop himself he asks, “What’s the matter with you?”

Ren ignores him. “Do you spar?”

“Excuse me?”

Ren points to the ring across the room. “Do. You. Spar?”

Hux narrows his eyes. Something about Ren’s energy is setting his teeth on edge – it’s vicious. It matches his own. Hux probes curiously at the bubble surrounding him again.

Ren’s upset. Irritated. Disappointed. And he smells like blood.

Ren’s eyes widen just a fraction of an inch. “Did you just…”

Hux is taking off his shoes and walking toward the ring.

“General?”

“I don’t have all day, R—” he supposes he shouldn’t call Ren by his name in front of all these people. It might cause a panic.

“Matt,” Ren supplies.

“Right. I don’t have all day.  _ Matt _ .”

They both have to walk past the gaggle of troopers at the weights to get to the ring, and Trig’s over-eager voice calls out, “General! Command—”

Really, Hux shouldn’t be stopping Ren from being recognized. This is his problem, not Hux’s, and he shouldn’t be acting like such an overgrown child in the first place, and it shouldn’t matter how many people see Ren’s stupid face.

Except, for some reason, it does matter.

Ren’s face feels  _ personal _ , intimate and close and (-Hux’s brain supplies  _ mine _ before he viciously pushes the thought away never to be seen again) like a secret that Hux doesn’t want anyone else to know. So he fixes Trig with a hard stare and shakes his head just the tiniest bit.

She falters and then stumbles to get her footing back.

“—der General. Commander General. Good…Old…General Hux. Our. Fearless. Commander. I hit my head, sir.”

A few of the other troopers are snickering behind her as she shifts uncomfortably in front of Hux. She rubs at the back of her head, over healing stitches, and says, “Hard, sir. I hit my head very hard. Well, you were. There. You probably. Know.” Trig is shaking her head to herself as if she can’t believe she’s still talking.

Hux starts wrapping his hands as he turns to her, back impossibly straight and face impassive.

“TR-1040.”

“Sir!”

“We are not friends.”

“Of- of course not, sir.”

“You will not address me in this way every time you see me.”

Trig closes her eyes and winces. “No, sir.”

“Then I trust I can go about my business without you calling out my name every time I’m in your line of sight?”

Trig hangs her head. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“At ease, then, TR-1040,” Hux says, and walks away toward the ring.

Ren, who had remained silent throughout this exchange, whispers something to Trig as he walks past, and she blushes. The group of troopers are whispering frantically before Hux is even out of earshot.

He turns at the bottom of the ring and asks, “what did you say to her?”

Ren’s face cracks up the middle, almost like a smile but not quite.

“I told her not to worry about you. And to stay tuned if she wanted to see you get your ass handed to you.”

“We’ll see,  _ Matt _ . That’s no way to talk to your General.”

Ren grins dangerously as they step into the ring, bloodthirsty and eager like a hungry animal.

He looks like he belongs there.

“So, how familiar are you with hand-to-hand combat, General?”

Hux keeps his answer simple – misleading, not lying. “It’s been a while.”

“They made you take a class at the Academy?”

“Yes.”

Ren’s wrapping his hands with practiced movements, pacing around Hux in a circle as he talks, predatory smile creeping into his face.

“So you know that if you want me to stop, all you have to do is tap or yield, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll go easy on you, but if you don’t tap, I won’t stop. Got it?”

Hux grins, short and brutal. “Yes.”

Ren holds out his fist in a surprising show of actual sportsmanship. Hux walks forward and taps it with his own before adding in a low voice, “I hope I don’t need to say that using the Force is to be considered cheating in this scenario.”

Ren flashes his teeth. “I won’t need it.”

Hux nods, unable to keep the corners of his mouth from pulling up. He so loves to be underestimated.

Ren drops into his stance, heavy and solid and immovable. He looks strong. Slow. Hux figured as much. He stays on the balls of his feet, ready to move.

Ren throws the first punch, which Hux dodges easily, coming around to his side and throwing a lightning fast hit to Ren’s liver before getting out of range again. Ren coughs and pulls up, dropping his hands in surprise.

He looks at Hux for a long time with his brows pulled together. Hux thinks for a second that he looks at him very much like the boy he met on Coruscant did. Like he’s a puzzle. 

“Problem?”

Ren shakes his head, speaks slowly like he’s parsing something out. “You’re…fast.”

Hux grins.

Ren’s face turns by degrees, goes from confused to  _ pleased _ and excited before he brings his hands back up again. Some of the rage is gone from the corners of his mouth, a little of the tension leaking out of his shoulders. He speaks again, circling Hux like a huge vulture.

“You move easily.”

Hux grunts.

“I didn’t expect that.”

He throws a huge, arching overhand at Hux’s jaw and Hux ducks and lands another punch to Ren’s stomach - it feels like hitting a brick wall. He shakes out his hand and narrows his eyes. Ren grins like a maniac.

“You expected me to just stand there and take it?”  Hux asks, a little breathless. Ren’s eyes darken.

“More or less.”

“Disappointed?”

Ren’s gaze is warm on him, too warm, running over his chest like he thinks Hux won’t notice.

“This is better,” Ren says.

Ren stays on the offensive for the next 15 or so minutes, but doesn’t manage to land a single hit. Hux lands a few, though they’ve only got speed and not much force behind them. When Ren throws a punch it looks deadly – he’s not pulling his hits much, if at all. Hux is glad he’s dodging them. Ren looks increasingly angrier as time passes: his cheeks are flushed and there’s a thin line of sweat in his hair. Hux is sweating and panting by the time Ren speaks next, derisive, trying to distract him.

“I really didn’t think you’d be so  _ good _ at this, General.”

Hux wipes at his forehead with his arm and says, “you shouldn’t assume.”

Ren makes a halfhearted swipe at him and Hux easily evades it. Ren’s eyes are still too warm, he’s enjoying this too much. He smiles.

“I assumed you would be… easy to overpower.”

Hux pauses, watching the expression on Ren’s face. Something pulls in the very bottom of his stomach. He isn’t entirely sure what they’re talking about. He says nothing, just watches a bead of sweat roll down Ren’s neck and stop over his collarbone.

“You’re not.”

Hux darts in and lands a solid hit to Ren’s solar plexus before darting out again. “No. I’m not.”

“Good.”

Ren throws another punch, which Hux dodges, at the same time he says, “can I ask you a question?”

“I suppose so.”

Ren’s sweaty face curls into a savage smile. “have you been sleeping well?”

Hux’s eyes widen and his movements slow, just for a second.

All the sudden Ren’s  _ right there _ in Hux’s carefully maintained space, faster than he would have thought possible, smelling impossibly like a forest floor and so—

He hits him. He hits him  _ hard _ , right to the stomach, and when Hux doubles over with the pain of it Ren sweeps his feet and gets Hux on his back with an embarrassingly loud thump. There are only a handful of people in the training room but every pair of eyes is now on the huge unnamed trooper straddling the General and grinning like he’s lost his mind.

Ren leans in close, something dark and gleeful in his eyes, and says in his low smooth voice, “I saw your dreams, General. I  _ felt _ them. Even off this ship. ”

He can’t think with Ren’s face this close. He can see every single freckle, every spark of amber in his eyes. He can see every curl of dark hair where it’s stuck to Ren’s sweat-blushed face. His eyes are bright, his lips –  _ stars _ his lips are flushed too, terrible against his white teeth, and he can still  _ smell  _ him and he smells so like mud and metal and like standing in the middle of an electrical storm, his weight warm and solid on Hux’s chest—

Hux refuses to let this happen. Ren will not make a fool of him in front of his own troops, he  _ will not _ .

He gets an arm over Ren’s shoulder and pulls him close to his body, throws off his center of gravity (-gods he smells amazing, it’s so much better when he’s this close, it’s so much better when he’s covered in sweat, it’s so much worse, it’s unignorable, it’s hypnotizing, no _focus-)_ and uses the momentum of Ren’s huge weight on him to flip their positions. He straddles Ren’s waist, one knee on the ground at either side of him, and gets one arm across Ren’s long throat before Ren even moves. He’s just looking at Hux, eyes wide and surprised and blinking, slow to process. Hux gets one of his arms in a one-handed lock and twists it painfully, holding it there.

He leans in close and doesn’t lower his voice when he says, “don’t do that, Ren.”

Ren’s eyes dart over in panic to the troopers watching them before settling on Hux, wide and surprised and shining with anticipation. He’s got him. Hux bares his teeth, not at all like a smile, and puts more weight on the arm across Ren’s throat.  

“Afraid they’ll see you?” Hux breathes, “afraid they’ll know you?”

Ren gasps, obscenely loud, and the sound goes straight through Hux like he’s been set on fire. He feels, again, like he’s drowning in something warm, just like in his dreams.

The troopers have completely abandoned the pretense of working out in favor of just openly gaping at the ring. One of them whispers something that seems to break Ren out of his stupor.

Ren finally moves his other arm and goes to hit him in the face, but Hux takes his arm off Ren’s throat, grabs his wrist and slams it brutally above his head. He leans forward to keep Ren pinned so they’re chest to chest, his whole torso holding Ren down, trapping him with his weight. He can’t stop talking, a savage satisfaction curling warmly in the pit of his stomach. He nods at the people outside the ring - they're out of earshot but he isn't sure Ren knows that.

“They’re all looking at you, Ren,” he says, low into Ren’s big ear, his nose brushing against dark curls, “what do you think they see, now?”

Ren makes a tiny shake of his head, wide eyes liquid with some unnamable emotion. Hux still can't stop whispering into his ear, gripping his wrist tighter, putting pressure on it till his face flushes. “They see you under me,” he says, voice softer than it's been in years, and he feels a terrible rolling heat uncurling in his chest. “They see how  _ weak _ you are.”

Ren’s stare is melting from defiant and angry to something else at the tone of Hux’s voice. His dark eyes are huge, flickering over Hux’s face as he talks. He looks away, frowning and looking up at his wrist pinned to the ground over his head. His hand flexes where Hux is holding it but it doesn't move - Hux puts all his weight behind it, wanting desperately to bruise his wrist, to  _ mark him _ -

Ren’s eyes fly to his face at that thought. Something changes in his expression, something irrefutably beyond the thrill of a good fight, and it's becoming more difficult for Hux to ignore it. He leans back, puts some distance between their faces, but keeps Ren pinned under him.

“You’re so weak, Ren.”

Ren’s looking at up him with an increasingly reddening face, eyes wider and warmer than Hux has ever seen them. His stare is so hot Hux can feel it like a fever, from his chest to his toes.

Hux moves his hand from where it’s gripping Ren’s wrist over his head back to his throat. He wraps his fingers over Ren’s throat slowly, precisely, applying pressure in increments so Ren can feel it. Ren’s hand lays on the ground above his head, free, as if Ren’s forgotten about it.

“It’s not—” Ren starts, but stops himself. His voice sounds short, shallow. Hux doesn’t let up the pressure on his throat.

“You’re getting sloppy,” Hux says softly, leaning even closer. He can smell Ren’s hair. “Look how easily I got you here. You’ll die if you go on the battlefield like this.”

“It’s—” Ren tries again. Stops again.

Hux cocks an eyebrow, the rush of power zinging all the way to his toes. He feels high.

“It’s you,” Ren says softly, voice strangled. “It’s just you.”

“I’m the only one that can get you on your back like this?” Hux twists the wrist he’s got in a lock and Ren grimaces, nods frantically. “Why?”

Ren shakes his head. Hux hardens his voice and tightens his grip a fraction of an inch. “Answer me, Ren.”

“You distract me,” Ren answers immediately.

Hux feels a thrill run through his whole body and realizes that he’s achingly, horrifyingly hard. He needs to end this  _ now _ . He leans forward and puts more pressure on the arm lock, waiting for Ren to yield.

He doesn’t.

“Come on,” he says, low and dangerous. Ren keeps looking at him with that stare, open and scorching and pleading, but he doesn’t say a word.

“Come on. Say it.” He twists again. Ren winces, hissing through his teeth. He’s going to break his wrist if this keeps up, or at least dislocate his shoulder. Maybe both.

Ren’s big wet stare finds his face again and he can't look away, it's everywhere. There's something there, something that makes Hux’s chest warm and painful, something that tugs at the bottom of his stomach and lower. Something submissive.

Ren opens his beautiful red mouth.

“I…”

Hux gives another vicious twist, lowers his face back down so it's an inch from Ren’s ear. Mouths, “come on,” against Ren’s temple, so soft no sound comes out.

“I yield,” Ren whispers so quietly Hux barely hears.

Not good enough.

“I can't hear you, Ren.”

Ren shakes his head, desperate. Hux draws his eyebrows together in a mockingly soft expression.

“You’ll have to speak up.”

The too-hot look in Ren’s eyes slams shut like a blast door, replaced by cold, hard fury. Hux’s hands leave Ren’s body of their own accord and he’s shoved back by a huge invisible hand, and Hux can feel the barely-contained rage in the bubble of power where it touches him. He slides across the ring, only to look up and find the room mostly empty. Phasma is herding the troopers out the door like sheep, a hard look on her face but the ghost of a smile in her eyes when she looks at Hux. She has to go back for Trig, who’s standing looking between Hux and Ren with her mouth open like she can’t decide where to stare. 

Hux looks back at Ren with his hair in his eyes and pants, “you cheated.” 

Ren looks at him for a long, stretched-out moment, sweating and red-faced, before storming out of the ring and out of the training room all together. Hux is still sitting on the floor, still panting, still hard, and still trying to figure out what just happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was upset about having phasma just like pick up a girl and not name her or anything because i, like, wanted to treat my characters with more respect than that but also Phas is sort of a player and i just. didn't want to. 
> 
> also, as you can tell, fighting is foreplay. i was sort of hot under the collar picturing this shit.   
> sex is next because how could it not be 
> 
> #notsorry for updating this fucking fast, tell yo frayns.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux cracks.   
> Or, the one where they fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am eviscerated by the political landscape of America today, so here's some sex. Because i know i want some form of escape right now.

Hux is fuming.

He’d left the training rooms for his quarters and gotten halfway through a shower before the events of his ridiculously childish sparring match with Ren actually hit him – and since then he’s been completely unable to concentrate on anything at all. Trying to do paperwork half-hard is a joke, and he isn’t meant to be on duty for another full cycle, so he does the only thing he can think to do: he goes for a walk.

Damn Ren. Damn him.

Hux loathes him so much he’s dizzy. So much his whole body feels hot, his skin feels buzzing and over-sensitive, he can hear his heartbeat in his ears—

Loathing. Yes. That’s what this is.

Hux makes a very tight fist in his gloves. Ren is a  _ child _ . An overgrown, indulgent, emotional child who Hux hates very much, only he can’t stop thinking of the look on Ren’s face when Hux’s fingers had wrapped around his throat—

He stops.

He’s in front of Ren’s door.

How did this happen? How did his feet take him here? He’d been so sure he’d been walking aimlessly – but now that he’s here he isn’t sure what to do.

Knocking is out of the question. He has nothing to say; he doesn’t even know why he’s here. Leaving seems…cowardly. Hux stands and looks at the door for a second. His ears are ringing. He raises his hand to touch the door before he realizes what he’s doing and pulls it back as if he’s been burned. He turns to go and the door opens.

Ren’s standing there in his sleep pants, bare feet stark white against the black tile of the floor, with his huge ridiculous chest bare and his hair wet from the shower. It’s dripping onto his shoulders. There are freckles on his chest, Hux thinks distractedly. He can’t stop staring at them. They’re on his neck too, and why didn’t Hux ever notice Ren’s neck before? It’s long, graceful in a way that turns his stomach, so pale and covered in dark freckles that go all the way down to his chest. His throat’s red, like Ren’s been scrubbing at it, like –

Hux’s  _ hands _ had been there. Just a few hours ago.

He drags his eyes up to Ren’s face with considerable effort. Ren’s eyes are cracked through with that openness, that same look as before, in the ring. It hurts to look at him.

“General.”

Hux nods.

“Ren.”

Ren shifts his weight from one foot to the other. His pants are so thin, and they’re so low on his hips.  _ Seven hells _ , Hux can make out the outline of a truly remarkable—

“What are you doing here?”

“Why did you leave?” Hux blurts out. Ren blinks. Hux tries again, doing his best to sound disdainful.

“Why did you…storm out, like that? Like a prissy little brat?” Hux narrows his eyes and folds his arms. “Gods, Ren, you’re such a –”

Ren’s arm shoots out and grabs the front of Hux’s greatcoat, pulls him inside, and he’s kissing him before Hux even realizes what’s happening. Hux pulls back, reeling, both expecting and not expecting this, and tries to roll his eyes.

“Oh come on, Ren, do you really think—”

He’s doing it again, crowding him against the door of his quarters, using Hux’s body to push the door closed, breathing hot and harsh into his mouth, sliding his hands into his hair. Hux opens his mouth into it without thinking about it, closes his eyes without thinking about it, puts his hands on Ren’s chest and can feel the heat of his body even through his gloves.

Ren is everywhere, he’s got Hux completely backed up against the door and his whole body is flush against him and the smell of his shower-damp skin is making Hux dizzy, he can’t  _ think _ , he doesn’t know why he’s kissing him, doesn’t know why he didn’t kiss him before, why he isn’t leaving, why he should  _ ever  _ leave again. One of Ren’s huge hands comes up to touch Hux’s jaw and his eyes snap open.

Ren had just come dangerously close to having the upper hand.

Hux gets a hand into Ren’s hair and pulls his head back sharply, panting and dizzy but still just as angry as he was before.

“ _ Stop _ interrupting me.” There’s a flash of heat in Ren’s eyes when Hux tugs on his hair before Hux releases him and lets his hand fall to his side.

Ren’s lips, the ones Hux has refused to consider since seeing Ren’s face for the first time, are spit-slick and a little swollen, and he licks at them like he’s tasting Hux. He grins, somehow at once completely different than his usual expression and exactly the same, and pushes Hux’s coat off his shoulders. It falls to the floor and Hux doesn’t pick it up.

“Sorry, General,” he says, working on Hux’s jacket next, “I just really wanted you to shut up.”

Hux shoves at Ren’s chest with one hand, hard. Ren stumbles back into the hallway a little with a surprised look on his face. Hux’s stomach is full of two kinds of fire, feeding each other and making him furious and hot all over. He shoves at Ren again, gets him back another few steps.

“You are insufferable.” Another shove. He advances on Ren slowly with each one, like he’s stalking him. He’s livid.

“You show me your face.  _ That _ face.” Shove. Ren actually stumbles. They’re already halfway down the hallway. Hux hasn’t even taken off his gloves.

“You worm your way into my mind like the _snake_ you are,” another shove. “Make it impossible to close my _eyes_ without thinking of your ridiculous voice.” Shove. Ren grabs the wall for support, stumbling backwards as Hux steps forward, eyes wide and disbelieving and chest naked and freckled and flushed.  

“Then you challenge me to that sparring match to what, to make yourself  _ feel better? _ ” Hux shoves with both hands this time, and Ren stumbles back into the wall, leaning his naked shoulder against it, lips parted in surprise.

Hux slams his hands against the wall on either side of Ren’s head. Ren actually flinches, pupils dilating so far they look like they’re going to swallow him.

“You drag me into that ring with that bloodthirsty look on your face,” he says, furious and soft, leaning into Ren’s face so he can feel his breath against his mouth, “and you have the audacity to pout like a child when I  _ beat  _ you?” He leans forward and slowly, deliberately, bites Ren’s lip. A pathetic whimper escapes Ren, quiet like he can't stop it. “And now you tell me to shut up?”

Hux doesn’t pull away, speaks right up against Ren’s lips, hot and slick and vicious when he says, “you intolerable  _ animal _ , Ren.”

Ren’s breath leaves his body in one big rush and his eyes drift closed. He tilts his head back and sighs into Hux’s mouth.  

“Yes.”

Hux pulls back a little so he can see Ren’s face, puts his hand back against his throat, squeezes just a little where it’s probably sore from before, and breathes against his mouth, “yes,  _ what? _ ”

Ren doesn’t hesitate, just opens his eyes so Hux can see the broken look of them. They’re so warm. “Yes, General.”

Hux trails his hand down Ren’s throat to his collarbone. He’s still got his gloves on. “Good boy.”

Ren’s eyes roll back in his head a little, and he leans heavily against the wall like he can’t hold himself up. When he looks at Hux next his eyes are – wrecked. Cracked and hot and pleading. Open. Wet, wide, vulnerable. His mouth is slack and red, turned up just the slightest bit.

It occurs to Hux that Ren has perhaps never been praised before.

He takes off his gloves and Ren’s eyes follow the movement with rapt attention, like he’s never seen the skin of Hux’s hands before, and when he drops the gloves on the ground Ren looks up at Hux’s face with an expression that looks like begging in itself.

“Stars, Ren, you’re so  _ easy _ ,” he teases, unbuttoning his shirt while Ren just stands there, staring at him with huge eyes. “It’s like you’ve never done this before.”

He freezes. Looks up at Ren’s face and asks carefully, “Have you done this before?”

Ren gets a bit of himself back into his expression and rolls his eyes with a huff.

“Are you asking if I’m a virgin, General?” His voice is darker than Hux has ever heard it.

“Yes.”

Ren’s hands come up to finish unbuttoning Hux’s shirt for him while he talks.

“I’m trained in the Dark Side of the Force, Hux,” he says, low and intimate, and Hux doesn’t try to suppress the shiver when he says his name, “do you know what the Dark Side is?”

Hux shrugs. “Not really, no,” he admits.

Ren starts to pull Hux’s shirt off his shoulders, his eyes flaring with heat at each new inch of exposed skin. His voice when he speaks next is even lower, rasping, cracked with arousal like he’s drunk with it.

“It’s passion, Hux. It’s passion in all its forms.”

He’s running his hands over Hux’s chest torturously slow; his hands on him so hot Hux fears he might catch fire.

“It’s not just rage, you know,” Ren murmurs, leaning in to nose at the side of Hux’s neck under his ear, “it’s rage and hunger,” he presses a kiss to Hux’s neck, “fear,” he runs his tongue along Hux’s jaw, “lust,” he takes Hux’s earlobe in his teeth and tugs a little, whispers “hatred” straight into his ear in a voice so low Hux can feel it in his toes. He shivers.

“All the  _ basest  _ passions of humanity,” Ren says, and something has crept into his voice as he’s been talking; he sounds rhythmic like the ocean. Like a storm. Hux feels his eyes sliding shut at the sound of it, and he bites at his bottom lip with his teeth. Ren’s voice drops even lower at that, like watching Hux is pulling him down into something. He’s still so close, his breath so warm on Hux’s ear when he says, “that’s what the Dark Side is.”

Ren pulls back and looks hungrily at Hux’s whole face like he can’t get enough of it. “It would be  _ irresponsible _ for me to remain a virgin and train in the Dark.”

Hux narrows his eyes. The tone of this conversation has shifted and Hux isn’t sure he has control anymore. He wants it back.

“That doesn’t answer the question though, Ren.”

Ren’s eyes stop their methodical catalogue of Hux’s face to look him in the eye. He doesn’t respond.

“Are you a virgin?” Hux asks again.

“No,” Ren says, a little too sharply, a little too defensively. 

Hux raises an eyebrow at him. They’re still standing in the hallway. 

“No,” Ren says again, then blushes. “But…” He looks down. Looks back up. Hux puts a hand on his chest, uncharacteristically gentle. Urging him on. 

“But...I haven’t had much. Occasion.” Ren looks at Hux’s collarbone instead of his face. “The...encounters I have had were more - research. Never- never with-”

Hux understands. “Whores.” 

Ren nods. “Never with someone who.” He looks up and his gaze is scorching again, just like that. Like flipping a switch. “Wanted me.”  

Hux walks over to Ren’s indulgently huge bed – really, of  _ course _ Ren has a huge bed – and sits down on the edge of it, still in his undershirt and his pants and his boots. He looks at Ren.

“I’m not a whore, Ren.”

“No.”

He hardens his expression, intent on setting Ren straight. “And I don’t want you.”

Ren raises one eyebrow, tilts his head and walks over so he’s standing between Hux’s legs. Slowly, languidly, without ever looking away from Hux’s face, he drops to his knees. Ren’s on his  _ knees  _ in front of him, all that power and strength and warmth kneeling at Hux’s feet,  _ his,  _ all his, and in his darkest dreams he never could have imagined this _. _ Hux feels a visceral, searing savagery shoot through him. He wants to hurt Ren. He wants to hear him beg in that beautiful, broken voice. He’s so hard it hurts. He takes a deep, steadying breath.

“I don’t want you,” he whispers again, voice unsteady.

“Are you sure?” Ren asks, dark voice teasing, knowing. Hux knows Ren can feel it, the heat curling in the bottom of his stomach, but it’s the principle of the thing, surely. He gives a curt nod.

“Quite sure.”

Ren spreads his legs a little, settles back on his heels. Gets comfortable. The beads of water falling from his hair, drying on his naked chest are driving Hux to distraction.

“Hm.”

He looks back up at Hux then, puts one huge hand on Hux’s boot and starts sliding it off. His eyes are so dark Hux is afraid he’s going to fall into them. He can’t look away.

Ren’s expression falls from playful into something hungry, pupils swallowing up the amber of his eyes. He puts his scorching hand on Hux’s bare calf and leaves it there, pupils dilating impossibly further.

Hux thinks of the time when he was 16, when he and his squadron narrowly escaped a black hole. He remembers looking out the viewport and seeing nothing but a terrible black void – no stars, nothing. They’d been so close to the edge he’d thought they were going to die. One kilometer further and they’d have been past the point of safety. They would have been swallowed up.  

Ren bends down, eyes still on Hux, and kisses the toe of Hux’s boot. Hux can see his pink tongue against the black leather.

Heat tears through his whole body. 

The event horizon. That’s what it’s called. He’s passing it; he’s passing it right now with Ren’s liquid dark eyes on him, with Ren’s body burning him with its inescapable heat, with the suffocating mud of Ren’s voice in his ear.

Hux saw a black hole eat a Red Giant once. Ren’s hands are behind his knees, burning into his skin. He imagines himself being crushed to something the size of a pin by nothing but the ravenous force of Ren’s stare.

Ren gets his other boot off, eyes still burning into him. Hux doesn’t understand how something so dark can be so  _ alive _ . He feels off balance, like he’s falling.

His feet are bare, and somehow this makes him feel more naked and exposed than anything else. He’s lightheaded, can’t take his eyes off Ren kneeling in front of him.

Ren smirks with one side of his face, cocky, and Hux feels a surge of anger. Ren is playing him, he’s  _ putty  _ in Ren’s hands and this  _ will not do _ .

He needs that look back, the one Ren had on the mat, flat on his back with Hux’s hand around his throat.

He steels his voice with difficulty and says lowly, “stop smirking like that, Ren.”

It’s the voice he uses on the bridge, the one that commands whole armies. Demands obedience.

The cocky grin falters. Ren’s hands are warm and huge on Hux’s ankles and they squeeze involuntarily. Hux smiles, violent and sharp, and Ren shivers.

Hux leans back onto his elbows, leaving Ren kneeling in front of him like an afterthought, and tilts his head. Keeps his voice hard.

“You’re right,” he says. “I do want you.”

Ren’s eyes are shining, liquid flecks of amber in a thin ring around huge black pupils.

“I want to use you, Ren.”

Ren’s breath huffs out, almost like a laugh, disbelieving. He’s leaning forward into Hux’s space like he can’t help it. Hux can see the ever-present tension leaking out of his shoulders and neck at the tone of his voice, and he knows. He knows exactly what to do.

“You want to be used, don’t you?”

Ren looks at him for a long moment, eyes almost afraid, before he bites his lip and nods.

Hux drops his voice into something indulgent, low, almost gentle.

“I want to hurt you.”

Ren’s eyes flutter shut and he breathes out, slow and drunk.

“You deserve it,” Hux says, voice impossibly soft.

“Yes.”

Hux leans forward and grabs Ren’s hair, tight and close to the scalp. Pulls brutally. Doesn’t say a word. Ren swallows, throat bobbing up and down. The back of his neck is sweating.

“General.”

Hux doesn’t let go of his hair, leans forward. Their lips are almost touching. Ren’s panting.

“General. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Hux relaxes his grip, moves to hold the back of Ren’s head. His hair is soft and damp, from the shower and from sweat. He runs his thumb down the back of Ren’s neck and Ren shudders, huge and visible.

“General,” he sighs, like a prayer.  

Hux runs his tongue over his teeth and leans in until his lips are touching Ren’s.

“Don’t make that mistake again,” he says, barely above a whisper. His voice is lower than it perhaps has ever been.

“No, sir,” Ren says, eyes melting like he’s drowning, and Hux’s cock twitches.  _ Sir. _

“Oh,  _ good _ boy, Ren.”

Ren whimpers. Actually  _ whimpers _ , high and strained like a desperate animal. Hux understands what he needs now. His hands are on Hux’s knees and he slides them up his legs before he stops, looks at Hux pleadingly.

“Can…can I touch you?”

“You don’t deserve that.”

Ren shakes his head, eyes wide.

“No, Sir. I. I don’t.” 

Hux pets Ren’s hair. Ren closes his eyes and leans into it, his whole body relaxing. His legs slide apart just a little further. Ren speaks like it’s paining him, like he can’t stop.

“I. I don’t deserve anything,” he says, eyes still closed. “I’m a  _ failure _ .”

Ah. This is what’s been bothering him since the Knights returned. This is why his energy was so on edge, why he’d wanted to fight Hux, why he’d been pacing like a caged animal, why he was  _ always  _ pacing like a caged animal. Ren’s shoulders visibly fall with his words, like he’s unloading them from his body just by speaking them.

“I’m a failure,” he says again, quiet and broken, and Hux feels a vicious tug of something almost like affection in his chest. He threads his fingers into the hair at the base of Ren’s head, pulls up so Ren’s looking at him, but Ren won’t open his eyes.

“Look at me, Kylo.”

At the sound of his name Ren’s whole body shivers and his eyes crack open, first one and then the other like he’d been asleep. Hux can see how hard he is through his pants, improbably huge just like the rest of him.

“ _ Hux _ ,” he says, rasping and pleading, though neither of them seems sure what he’s pleading for.

Hux pushes Ren’s hair out of his face almost tenderly, leans forward and kisses him wet and hot and open, slow and languid like he’s done it a thousand times. Ren sags sideways against him, leaning on Hux’s legs like he can’t bear the weight of his own body anymore.

“You  _ are  _ a failure, aren’t you?” Hux asks, quiet and cruel, tipping Ren’s head back and murmuring into the skin under Ren’s ear. Horribly, vindictively soft where he knows Ren wants pain and violence.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Be better, then.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Hux pushes his pants down but doesn’t take them off, just pushes them far enough that he can get his cock out, keeps one hand on Ren’s head and wraps the other hand around himself when he says, “you’ve never done this before, have you?”

Ren licks his lips, obscenely slow. His chest is rising and falling faster than before. He shakes his head.

“I’ll show you,” Hux says, voice nearly as dark as Ren’s. Ren nods. He can’t keep his eyes off Hux’s dick.

“Please,” Ren says without looking up, “please.”

Hux nods at him and Ren falls forward like he’s dying for it. Hux pulls his hair sharply and says, “wait.”

Ren looks up, his mouth centimeters from where Hux wants it. He can feel his breath on him.

“Kiss it.”

He does, leans forward and kisses the tip gently, lips warm and wet. Hux’s eyes slide shut.

“Don’t stop.”

Ren doesn’t stop, keeps laying hot, open-mouthed kisses down the length of Hux’s cock and back up again, hands squeezing into fists over Hux’s knees like he’s stopping himself from touching.

“Good,” Hux breathes, already embarrassingly close. Ren’s fists tighten. His hands are shaking. “Open your mouth for me.”  

He opens his mouth immediately, greedy and over-eager, and it takes all Hux’s willpower to go  _ slow _ and not to push Ren’s head down and choke him with it until he cries—

His mouth is impossibly wet, hot like a furnace.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he hisses through his teeth. “Fuck. Ren that’s. That’s good. You’re so good.”

Ren whines at the praise in the back of his throat and Hux  _ feels _ it.

Ren’s hands curl around the backs of Hux’s legs at the same time he runs his tongue all the way up the underside of him, and he’s pulling Hux toward him just the smallest bit like he can’t help himself, leaning into it and pushing Hux deeper into his throat and.  _ Fuck _ .

“Kylo,” Hux says, voice fraying at the edges. He pulls Ren's hair so hard his knuckles turn white.

He feels too hot in his own skin; half insane with the way Ren’s red, red mouth is stretched over him, losing his mind at the way Ren’s  _ whimpering,  _ pulling Hux toward him like he weighs nothing, needing to be closer,  _ devouring _ him –

Hux can smell the mud from his dreams like he’s drowning in it, and it’s Ren’s skin, it’s Ren’s voice, it’s Ren’s eyes where they’re looking up at him, so warm and so dark—

“Oh, Ren, sweetheart, you’re so good,” he babbles, voice cracking when he feels Ren actually  _ swallow _ around him. “fuck, fuck, just like that, Kylo,  _ Kylo—” _

The sounds Ren’s making around him are so desperate and high Hux only half believes they’re actually coming from him. He pulls at Ren’s hair again, a warning, but Ren only growls and grabs his hips, pulling him closer, pushing him deeper, relentless.

“Ren, Ren I’m going to—”

Ren’s suddenly in his head,  _ right there _ , a brilliant, bright spot of heat and darkness and Hux feels like he’s going to drown in how badly Ren wants this, the need sharp and painful in Ren’s chest, dangerously close to coming himself, hands bruising into Hux’s hips with the insane desire to be closer, _ closer, please, General, please, do it— _

Hux grabs Ren’s head and pulls him closer, till his nose touches Hux’s stomach, till he can't breathe because knows now how Ren needs it, and his voice cracks when he says, “oh, fuck—”

Ren’s voice in his head says,  _ please, Hux _ , clear as a bell, and Hux sees the Red Giant being devoured by that black hole in a brilliant flash of memory, tries to push  _ Ren mine fuck yes  _ into Ren’s head, screws his eyes shut and comes.

When he can think again, he cracks open his eyes and looks down at Ren where he’s still kneeling on the floor. His heart lurches.

Ren’s utterly wrecked. His hair is hanging in his eyes, something entirely new in them that Hux has never seen before, and his mouth is – indecent. Just. Indecent. He’s smiling, soft and open and small, almost shy, blushing from his cheeks all the way down his chest, beautiful and pink against the constellation of freckles on his skin. His pants are still obscenely low and –

“Ren, did you  _ come? _ ”

Ren bites his lip and looks sheepish.

Hux flops backward onto the bed and waves an arm in Ren’s direction. He’s still panting.

“Seriously?”

“Uh, yeah.” Ren’s voice is destroyed. Hux thinks  _ I did that _ and a flash of heat shoots through him again, low like the coals under a fire. He sits back up on his elbows with a colossal effort. He doesn’t know why he’s so exhausted. It must have been Ren’s presence in his head – everything felt like so  _ much _ , overwhelming in a way Hux was completely unused to. 

“Don’t your knees hurt?” 

Ren shrugs. 

“Come here.” 

Ren’s eyes go wide and one side of his mouth pulls up. He gets up and lays on the bed next to Hux, both of them sprawled out on their backs, arms nearly touching.

Hux realizes Ren’s sitting there in his own come, that he’s still got his pants on.

“You’re disgusting, Ren.”

Ren laughs.

Hux closes his eyes and drifts for a few minutes, feeling warmer and more comfortable than he has any right to.

“Hux.”

“Mm.”

Ren turns to him, face close and flushed.

“Thank you.”

Hux smiles despite himself. He feels drunk.

“Yeah, Ren, any time.”

Ren’s looking at him with wide eyes, slack-jawed.  

“What?”

“You’re. I’ve just. I’ve never seen you smile before. Like that.” 

“Don’t get used to it.”

Ren turns so his body’s facing Hux. “I could.”

Hux flushes, turns away to look at the ceiling. They’re quiet for several moments before Ren touches Hux’s shoulder. His hands don’t feel quite so hot anymore. Still warm, wonderfully so, but. Less consuming.

“Get your hand off me, you ingrate.”

Ren laughs again, doesn’t move. Hux doesn’t move either.  

He drifts off to sleep.

Ren wakes him a few hours later, lights dim like it’s the middle of the sleep cycle (- _ kriff,  _ of course it is-), crawling into bed with his hair wet and his skin smelling better than it should. He’s completely naked.

Hux is in the exact same position he was in before, flat on his back with his dick hanging out of his pants, shirt hiked up over his chest like he didn’t have time to take it off. He looks down at himself and huffs.

“I should. I should go,” he hears himself say, startled to find he doesn’t mean it at all.

Ren’s already under the covers, lying on his back and bundling them up around himself like a child. Hux distantly remembers calling Ren  _ sweetheart _ and his chest gives a dangerous lurch.

Ren’s looking at him, gaze warm. “Or,” he says, quiet and muddy like he’s drunk, “you could stay.”

Hux doesn’t think about why – he tries not to think about anything at all, and for once just does what he actually wants.

“Okay.”

He takes off the rest of his clothes (because they’re  _ dirty _ , not because he wants to feel Ren’s skin) and gets under the covers to escape the ship’s ever-present chill. It’s so warm. Hux had forgotten how warm it was to be in bed with another person. His toes actually feel warm, for the first time in – he doesn’t know.

Ren smells exactly like his dreams. Rainy, like grass and life. 

The room is so dark, somehow. Darker than before. Like there’s some sort of universal  _ feeling _ associated with the middle of the night, even in the vacuum of space. Closer, quieter. Everything feels like a dream.

Ren is completely naked next to him, his body a furnace. Hux belatedly notices his own nakedness, caught between the over-sensitive fuzz of sleep on his skin and a rush of hot awareness at Ren’s proximity. His smell. His skin, his hair, his eyes. He smells _ so  _ good.

Without really thinking it through, Hux leans over and kisses him, slow and unhurried.

There’s something in the air now that hadn’t been there before – a kind of easiness. He feels less like he’s going to burst into flame and more like he’s been burning for days, weeks, low and languorous. Touching Ren doesn’t feel like a live wire anymore; it feels  _ safe _ (and he is resolutely not thinking about that) when Hux slides his hands into his hair – less like a jolting zing of electricity and more like standing in a downpour of warm bathwater.

He presses closer, one hand in Ren’s long hair and the other holding his jaw, two fingers splayed over Ren’s ear, lips so warm, and when Ren sighs wetly against his mouth and wraps both arms around Hux’s waist, Hux doesn’t protest. He lets Ren pull him close, closer, until Hux is laying on top of him and their cocks are sliding together, both hard but in a way that’s so much less urgent than before. Ren gasps into Hux’s mouth and Hux grins, pushing his head up and kissing under his jaw, biting his jawline and down his neck until he gets to his collarbone.

Fuck, he tastes good. Somehow, Ren tastes exactly like the rain from his dream. Hux kisses his mouth again, unable to help himself.

Ren’s mouth curves up into a smile, making it very difficult to continue kissing him.

“What?” he asks, breathless.

“I taste good,” Ren says, still grinning. The lights are so dim but the starlight glints off his teeth. “You think I taste good. You dreamt about it.”

“Stop reading my mind, Ren,” Hux murmurs against his neck, dragging his mouth to his shoulder, hands wandering all over Ren’s skin. He slides his legs down to either side of Ren’s body, folding them up a little so he can straddle him. This is very different than before. Hux feels like he’s underwater.

He kisses Ren’s chest wetly, slow and almost gentle. His voice is warm when he says, “You knew about the dreams, anyway.” He bites Ren’s nipple and Ren gasps, loud like a shot through the quiet of his quarters. His hands fly from Hux’s waist to his head, holding him against his nipple like he needs him there. Hux flicks it with his tongue and a full body shudder goes through Ren. Hux feels it where their dicks are lined up, shivers with him. They’re nearly exactly the same height.

Ren’s shaking his head, speech stuttering when Hux laves his tongue over his nipple over and over again with half a smile on his face.

“I – oh, fuck. I didn’t actually. Ah. Kn-know what you were. Dreaming about.”

Hux looks up from Ren’s chest.  _ Bastard _ .

“You were lying to me?”

Ren’s pushing Hux’s hair back from his face over and over, hips making little circles of their own accord that are making Hux’s whole body hot.

“No, I.” Ren’s mouth opens silently for a moment when Hux pinches his other nipple in his fingers. “I, uh.  _ Shit _ . I knew it had something. Vaguely to do with me and. And I –  _ fuck,  _ Hux. I knew you would wake up frustrated.” His hips don’t stop moving, Hux suspects he can’t stop them. “That’s all,” Ren says, soft and breathless against the top of Hux’s head.

Hux hums against Ren’s chest, reaches down and wraps his fingers (with  _ difficulty _ ) around Ren’s cock and Ren moans, open and filthy and loud. The sound goes straight through Hux and he feels, urgently, the need to have Ren inside him. He pushes the feeling at Ren and Ren moans again, louder, completely unreserved in a way that makes Hux almost jealous.

“Please,” he says, high and desperate, biting his lip and tilting his head back.  Hux thinks that he’s never seen anything more beautiful than this. He thinks stubbornly of each of the parts of a Class V Speeder alphabetically so that Ren doesn’t hear that thought.

“Where’s –”

Before he finishes Ren’s holding his hand out and there’s a bottle flying into his hand from the dresser across the room. Hux stops and looks at Ren under him, cocks an eyebrow. Ren smiles, eyes still a little wild but nothing like earlier. His smile is relaxed, the tension gone from his eyes. Hux has never seen him like this, flushed and easy, mouth swollen and grinning and red even in the dim light of the stars.

“Handy trick,” he says quickly, so that Ren won’t hear  _ fucking gorgeous _ echoing through his mind.

Ren’s pushing one slick finger into him before he gets a chance to take the lube out of his hand, his other hand coming up to splay across Hux’s back, holding him, grounding him when Hux leans against Ren’s chest, all his breath leaving him in a rush. Ren’s energy around him feels pleased, possessive, warm and relaxed and hot and  _ good – _

This is nothing like before. Ren had  _ needed  _ him before, had needed him so badly it made Hux dizzy, had needed Hux to push him, to hurt him in a way that shocked them both. He still wants to - later.

Ren doesn’t need him now. He wants him. He wants him so much Hux aches with it.

He’s searching for something, Hux can tell. When he finds it, Hux arches his back and sighs, loud and brilliant, stars exploding in front of his eyes when he closes them.

“ _ Ren.” _

Ren takes his time, gets up to three fingers before Hux is panting into his mouth, whimpering “Kylo,” over and over and over like a mantra, and he must have done this before, there’s no way this is his first time, Hux isn’t sure how long he’s going to be able to last like this. He can hardly form words. He grabs Ren’s face.

“Please,” he pants, rocking back desperately onto Ren’s fingers, “I need—”

“What do you need, General?” Ren asks, voice dark and teasing. Hux digs his fingernails into Ren’s chest.

“Just  _ fuck me _ already, Ren.”

Ren looks up at him, stills where he’s inside him. “Are you sure?”

He knows what he means. He’s...well. It’s going to be slow going. He nods.

“I can take it.” He  _ wants  _ to. The thought slams into him and he feels short of breath.

Ren shifts, gets his fingers out and uses probably more lube than is strictly necessary all over his ridiculous dick and by the time he moves under him Hux is shaking with it, the need to feel this, but—

“Wait.”

Ren stills immediately.

“Can you…” Hux trails off, unsure of how to ask for this. He’s never unsure about anything. He hates it. He hates how it thrills him.

“Can you…be,” he squeezes his eyes shut, so frustratingly hesitant, “can you be in my head?”

Ren’s pupils go impossibly wider.

“You want me in there?”

Hux nods, doesn't consider the implications.  _ It’s warm when you're there.  _ Ren brings his hand up to Hux’s hair, pushes lube into it. Hux makes a face but lets him. Ren’s in his head at the same time he’s pushing into him, and it’s  _ too much  _ but it’s so warm, so impossibly warm and the pressure of Ren in his mind is so good, he’s there buzzing under Hux’s skin, all hot, overeager, passionate energy and devastating want, and Hux squeezes his eyes shut and throws his head back, sinking down onto him torturously slow, finally full of him and so overwhelmed he feels tears pricking behind his eyes.

He can  _ feel  _ Ren’s body singing with it, separate from his own but … attached, somehow, and they just sit like that for a while, foreheads pressed together, breathing into each other’s mouths. Hux sits up and Ren’s eyes cross.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Ren says, low and broken. In his mind there’s a series of images from both of them, a brilliant blue wave (Ren’s), the green of a mossy forest floor (his), dark, warm mud over pale feet ( _ his _ ), and from Ren there’s a steady stream of  _ yes yes General my General please yes so fucking tight _ –

Hux leans forward and puts his weight on Ren, breathes, “fuck me,” against his mouth. For a moment Ren doesn’t move, like he’s gathering himself, so Hux says it again, short and angry, impatient.

“Ren  _ fuck  _ me, come on.”

And finally, finally, he does.

He holds both of Hux’s hips so tight he knows it’s going to bruise and he pushes himself up into him over and over and over again, moaning so loud Hux is actually afraid someone will hear, before Ren adjusts his angle and hits—

“ _ Fuck, Kylo.  _ Oh. Shit _.” _

It’s perfect, every single time is. Just. His aim is perfect and Hux has no idea what’s coming out of his mouth, what he sounds like, what he  _ looks  _ like, but Ren’s biting his shoulder right where the bruise he left is just starting to fade and pushing an image into his mind and it’s himself, chest and cheeks flushed, teeth marks on his neck, shoulder, chest, stark red against his skin, hair fire-orange over his eyes, arching his back and moaning Ren’s name and Ren’s voice is saying straight into his head  _ fuck Hux do you have any idea so fucking beautiful fuck yes so good yes yes please yes thank you thank you fuck— _

And every sound out of Ren’s mouth is splintered and broken and uninhibited, louder than Hux ever would have thought, utterly lost. Hux can feel how close he is through his mind and it pushes him impossibly further, makes his skin impossibly hotter, and when Ren reaches down and wraps a huge hand around him Hux feels like he’s going to break apart.

They come at the same exact time, Ren crushing Hux to his body like he’ll die without him there, Hux actually  _ screaming  _ so loud his voice cracks.

He collapses against Ren’s chest, sticky and sweaty and completely exhausted. After a few minutes of panting, he moves to get up and doesn’t miss the flash of disappointment in Ren’s eyes before he’s looking out the window, pretending to be distracted. He pulls carefully out of Hux’s mind and Hux walks on unsteady legs to clean himself up. He staggers back and lays on his back next to Ren, arms touching. 

There’s a huge purple nebula outside Ren’s window.

“Do you know you have it?” Ren asks, quiet. It’s so quiet. Hux almost wishes Ren were back in his head. He's too tired not to observe that Ren had felt…good. There. When Ren puts one huge arm around his shoulders, Hux gives it a half-hearted shove and then presses closer against Ren’s side, face burrowing into his chest. He’s so tired.

“Do I know I have what?”

“The Force.”

Hux huffs against Ren’s nipple.

“I don’t have the Force, Kylo.”

Ren’s arm tightens a little around him at the sound of his name. He sighs.

“You do. I first noticed it on Kuru.” Ren’s thumb is rubbing idly over Hux’s shoulder, skirting the edge of the bruise from Kuru and the bite mark he’s just left. “When I was meditating, I felt you. Pushing back.”

Hux is falling asleep. He doesn’t believe him, but the sound of his voice is pulling him under it like a very warm tide. “Hm?”

“And when we fought, you…sensed me. My mood.”

“Well, yeah, you were  _ pushing  _ it at me.”

“That’s the Force, Hux. People can’t do that.”

Hux blinks, too tired to think of it.

“Why did you come to the training rooms?”

“Hm? Oh, well, because…”

“Because it just seemed like the right thing to do?”

Hux stops. “Yes,” he says, surprised. “I’m not really sure why else.”

“You were called there.”

It…actually it makes sense. It’s too much to consider. He just rubs his face against Ren’s chest and feels the reverberation of his speech through it.

“That’s why we were sent to Kuru,” Ren says, a low rumble that Hux can feel down into his throat, “The Force sent us there. Together.”

Hux laughs.

“You think the Force was playing  _ matchmaker _ ?”

“In a way.”

Hux feels inexplicably dizzy.

“I…don’t know what you mean, Ren.”

“I told you, Hux,” Ren says, and it seems all thoughts of  _ General  _ and respect have drained away for now, “the Dark Side of the Force is. It’s. It’s passion.”

“Yeah?”

“You. You bring me. Closer to it.”

Hux’s chest squeezes again.

“I bring you closer to the Dark.”

“Yes.”

“I make you a  _ worse  _ man.”

“A better Force user.”

Hux shifts onto his side, pretense abandoned, and wraps both arms around Ren’s huge torso.

“Must be all that boiling hatred, hm?”

Ren’s laugh rumbles through Hux’s body like thunder. He’s so tired. Ren’s so warm. “Yes,” Ren says, a smile in his voice.

“Good.”

“Goodnight, General.”

“Go to sleep, Ren.”  


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phasma tries very hard to embarrass everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love all of you that's all you're precious to me. i wrote a little stand alone porn thing that takes place a few months after this epilogue because i'm an unstoppable monster and it's [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8559994) \- if you're also unstoppable monsters you should go read it.

Because the Force seems to hate him, Hux runs into Phasma the next morning as he’s leaving Ren’s quarters. He’d planned everything very carefully – left before shift change, when the halls were likely to be most empty, showered and put on each careful layer of his uniform like armor, crept out the door while Ren slept sprawled on his stomach like a huge pale sea creature. Felt a pang in the bottom of his stomach looking at Ren’s face while he was asleep – so terribly young – and wrote it off as soreness.

When he walks to the door of Ren’s room Ren stirs, turns over and looks at him with an unreadable expression but doesn’t say anything. For a moment Hux stands there, holding his boots in his hand, socked feet sucking up the cold of the floor and stares at him. Ren’s hair is even more of a mess than usual and it makes Hux’s chest lurch. Ren’s mouth doesn’t move but his eyes relax almost like he’s going to smile. Hux looks away.

Phasma just  _ happens _ to be walking down the hall when the door closes behind him, and she stops dead in the middle of the hallway when she sees what door he’s just come out of.

Hux glares at her. “Don’t.”

“General.”

“Don’t.”

“ _ General. _ ”

Hux pinches the bridge of his nose and starts walking in the other direction, hoping to escape, but Phasma just turns around and keeps easy stride with him. Damn her long legs.

“So,” Phasma says, smile evident in every syllable, “how was your night?”

“Captain, shut up.”

“That’s no way to thank me after I cleared the training rooms for you yesterday.”

“Captain,  _ shut up _ .”

“’Ren has a face,’ he says,” says Phasma, like she’s going to laugh.

“Phasma.”

“It’s certainly a face, General.”

“So help me, Phasma I will push you out of an airlock right now—”

“Good to know Ren has all his teeth,” Phasma adds, the smirk so loud Hux is surprised it doesn’t somehow show through her helmet, “you might want to pull your collar up.”

Hux goes so red he thinks he might be glowing.

“Captain, if that’s all—”

“Oh, _no_ , Hux. That is certainly not all. But I’ll leave you to your duties.” She claps him heavily on the shoulder (- _how does she know_ _there are bite bruises there_ -) and he tries not to wince. “See you at lunch,” Phasma says ominously.

Lunch is … not as bad as Hux had been thinking.

It’s worse.

Phasma finds him immediately, helmet already off before either of them even sit down. She’s grinning like it’s a Galactic holiday when she leads him to a different table.

“Captain,” Hux says with very little patience, “why the fuck are we over here?”

Phasma just takes a bite of her lunch with a look of pure glee on her face. She nods behind Hux and he hears a group of troopers sit down, already chattering. When he hears Trig’s voice he leans forward and bangs his head on the table.

“—didn’t see a  _ thing _ .”

Hux looks up and locks eyes with Phasma, who’s already halfway to laughing.

One of the other troopers speaks.

“Trig come  _ on _ you were in there last you saw it end, right? Who won?”

“Trig, who won the kriffing fight?”

Trig shakes her head and throws up her hands. “I don’t know why you’re asking me this, you all  _ saw _ the fight. You know the General won.”

Hux smirks despite himself.

“Trig, that guy was huge.”

“And fucking  _ hot _ , who the hell was that?”

“Some radar tech or something.”

Hux can’t listen anymore; he takes a bite of his fruit and crunches unnecessarily loud, glaring at Phasma like he’s never going to forgive her. She’s smiling so wide it looks like her whole face might split open.

Hux hopes it does.

Phasma leans forward over her tray and lowers her voice, apparently done with her eavesdropping for the moment. Hux feels horribly trapped. Could he just get up and leave? Would she follow him into his own quarters? Probably. Would she follow him into  _ Ren’s  _ quarters?

Certainly not.

Hux thinks rather horribly of the way Ren’s tangled hair stood up all over his head when he woke up, and then (even worse) of the way it had felt to tangle it himself–

He looks up to find Phasma looking at him with an unacceptably familiar look on her face. She might as well have her chin in her hands.

“Stop it,” he snaps.

“You look different, General.”

“Phasma.”

“You’ve done a good job of hiding that bite mark on your neck all day,” she says idly, looking at her nails through her heavy gloves. “Hardly anyone is talking about it.”

“ _ Hardly anyone _ ?”

“Well,” Phasma says with a grin, “I’ve certainly been talking about it.”

Hux opens his mouth to assure her that his threat to throw her out an airlock had not been an idle one when Ren walks into the mess hall.

At least, he thinks Ren walks into the mess hall, but Ren doesn’t  _ actually  _ walk into the mess hall until almost a minute later, so he just straightens up and stares at the door for 30 seconds, completely still.

“Hello? Anyone home?” Phasma waves her hand in front of Hux’s face, where he can feel his own vacant expression but can’t seem to do anything about it. He can’t tear his eyes from the doorway.

“General?”

“Hm?”

_ Then _ , of course, is when Ren walks in. The bubble of his presence seems to have expanded considerably – not only could Hux feel him before he even reached this sector of the ship, but now that he’s in the room with him it’s – it’s incredibly distracting. He can feel him like he’s right there, breathing on the back of his neck, he can  _ smell  _ him and he can almost feel warm rain on his face and all hope of focusing is simply gone. 

_ Hello, General _ , Ren’s voice says into his head, startlingly clear and close.

Hux shakes his head like he’s trying to dislodge something and tries to look back at Phasma but she’s craning her head around to find what Hux is staring at. She finds it and smiles impossibly wider.

“Commander Ren!” she booms. Almost every single head turns in her direction. Hux wants to strangle her. Ren stops in his tracks.

Phasma waves him over. “Come. Join us.”

Ren actually walks over, a terrible black storm cloud in his robes and his boots and his mask, and Hux will never fear this man ever again, not when he knows how soft and pale and vulnerable he is underneath. Not when he knows how the lines of Ren’s mouth relax when he’s asleep, how he had pulled Hux to him half-conscious like a child with a teddy bear, not when he knows what Ren’s eyes look like when he comes, because he’d kept them open just so Hux could see the flood of pleasure in them, dark and overwhelmingly beautiful, not when he’s seen Ren with his hair in his face, panting and whining on his back –

“General, what are you thinking about?” Phasma asks, smirk threatening to never leave her face again.

_ Ren’s face when I came down his throat. _

Ren coughs loudly, a blast of white noise through the vocoder, holds up a hand next to his mask as if he’s forgotten he’s wearing it.

Phasma looks between them and pats the chair next to her.

“Please, Commander.”

Ren, astonishingly, sits.

“So, Commander Ren. Do you have a mouth?”

Ren turns to her and the bubble of his Force presence is astonished and a little embarrassed. Hux glares at Phasma with a blatant look of furious alarm on his face.

“To eat,” she clarifies slowly at Hux, eyes laughing. “How do you eat with that mask on?”   

Ren looks uncomfortable somehow, even without his face visible.

“I…” His hesitation filtered through the menacing growl of his helmet almost makes Hux laugh. “I take my meals in my quarters. Alone.”

“So you do have a mouth, then?”

“…yes.”

Phasma tilts her head at Hux and smiles. Ren’s mask turns in Hux’s direction and cold ghostly fingers run down the back of his neck.  _ Make her stop _ , he says in his real voice, straight into Hux’s mind like a buzzing nerve.

Hux stands. “Well, this has been lovely but I have work to do. Captain Phasma, Commander Ren.” He nods to each of them, ignores Phasma’s raised eyebrow and walks out of the mess hall, Ren’s Force fingers still on his neck, right over his teeth marks.

Ren’s not two minutes behind him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> seriously ya'll this fandom is. so full of nice people.  
> hugs


End file.
